LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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HISTORY 



Reformatory Movements, 



RESULTING IN A 



RESTORATION OF THE ^POSTOLIC CHURCH; 



TO WHICH IS APPENDED A 



HISTORY OF THE NINETEEN GENERAL CHURCH COUNCILS, 



History of All Innovations, from the Third Century Down, 



JOHN F. J ROWE. 



(REVISED AND ENLARGED.) 

° cOP YR| GHr 

1 0E 

CINCINNATI : 

JOHN F. ROWE, PUBLISHER. 
i8qo. 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, by 

JOHN F. ROWE, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



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PREFACE. 



^J\ 



In preparing this work for the public, we have drawn from the most 
reliable and distinguished authorities extant. We have prepared the 
work with much labor and patient research. The present work is the 
condensation of many volumes. For authorities, we have depended 
on such standard works as McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia, Ency- 
clopedia Britannica, Chambers' Encyclopedia, Prof. George P. Fisher's 
History of the Reformation, Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, 
Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, and Prof. R. 
Richardson's Memoirs of Alexander Campbell. In delineating the devel- 
opment of the great apostasy from the original apostolic order of 
things, in describing the successive Protestant reformations, in setting 
forth the restoration and identification of the Church of Christ, as 
accomplished through the labors of Alexander Campbell and his coad- 
jutors, and in giving a brief history of the nineteen Ecumenical 
Church Councils, we have followed the order of events as closely as it 
was possible to be done. We have aimed to give places, dates, and 
authorities, and corroborating testimony from disinterested parties. 
In a word, if there is any reliability in history, it will be found in the 
following pages. We have aimed to present a systematic compendium 
of Reformatory Movements, and as such we ask our readers to receive 
our work, bating all imperfections, as purely a labor cf love. 

THE AUTHOR. 



(Hi) 



INTRODUCTION 



For many years the writer has himself felt the pressing need of a 
work of this character. While young in the ministry, and compara- 
tively poor, in possession of very few books, and having no access to 
large libraries, he continually felt himself hampered by the absence of 
books of reference, and felt himself crippled in his public ministra- 
tions because he could not find time, in his struggles to live above 
want, to ransack the pages of history in quest of the desired informa- 
tion. The general reader needs just such a work as this, who, in a 
moment, by referring to the index, can find what he wants and satisfy 
himself. The preacher needs it for easy reference, and especially the 
traveling evangelist, who can not pack a lot of books with him. The 
author of this work, having frequently desired a help of this kind, 
which he could carry with him, to aid him both in speaking and writ- 
ing for the press, came to the conclusion that others might be greatly 
benefited by the matter contained in it. The author has for a long 
time had such a work in contemplation. It is not only intended for 
the Disciples of Christ, but it is also prepared with a view of circula- 
ting it among the various denominations, and with, the purpose of 
inciting the independent and untrammeled thinkers in the denomina- 
tions to investigate the pages of history to see if these things are so. 

Within the compass of this work, we have aimed to give a connected 
view of the Reformatory Movements from Martin Luther down to the 
times of the great reformer, Alexander Campbell. The reader will 
discover, the fact, that while such illustrious reformers as Luther, 
Zwingli, Melancthon, Calvin, Knox and Wesley only aimed at 
re-forming existing abuses and immoralities in the Church, Campbell 
sought the complete restoration of apostolic principles and practices, 

(v) 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

and, having determined upon a work of that character, did actually 
raise up a body of people identical with primitive Christians, both in 
faith and practice. The plan of the work is as follows : 

1. A brief statement of the primitive order of things. 2. A sketch 
of the apostasy from the third century down to the times of Luther, or 
to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 3. A connected history 
of the Protestant period, which embraces the efforts made at reforma- 
tion during the space of three hundred years. 4. The Restoration 
of the Apostolic Church. 5. A history of the nineteen Ecumenical 
Church Councils— the study of the proceedings of which is highly 
instructive and interesting, they serving as a sort of spiritual thermom- 
eter of the troublous times of the Church, as the Church was manipu- 
lated by princes and priests. The various decrees of successive 
councils will show how kings and princes were deposed, the rivalries 
of ambitious men in Church and State, the origin of image worship, 
auricular confession, penance, the mass, celibacy, purgatory, prayers 
for the dead, transubstantiation, etc. The subjects we have enumer- 
ated should be studied as they are not studied in these days of flashy 
literature and fast living. There is entirely too much superficial read- 
ing done, even by ministers of the gospel, who should be in possession 
of a general knowledge of church history, without which they will feel 
themselves more or less annoyed and crippled in their ministerial 
work. People who profess to be reformers can not very well progress 
as reformers unless they have an intelligent view of the situation, as 
we have outlined it in this work. The general reader, engaged in 
secular employments, who has not the time to explore the pages of 
many volumes, and not even time to consult books of reference, will, 
we feel confident, find this work of great advantage to him ; that it will 
aid him very much in ascertaining the facts of history, and furnish 
him with facts and data with which to make just comparison between 
truth and error, between what God has decreed, and what man has 
invented, and especially show him the difference between reforming 
imperfect church organizations and restoring the Church of Christ as 
founded by the apostles. 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

We should probably apologize to the general reader for investing 
portions of this work with a show of too much learning and too much 
refined scholarship; but we found it impossible to prepare a work of 
this character— which is history condensed — and dress it up in a simple 
garb of words and terms of speech, without marring more or less the 
pages of history, and without doing injustice to the subjects treated 
and to the authors quoted. 

If the reader shall derive as much benefit and pleasure in perusing 
these pages, as the author has derived from the preparation of the 
work, the author will feel that he has not labored in vain. 

In revising The Apostolic Church Restored, which has been before the 
public several years, we have enlarged the work considerably by add- 
ing ti it a History of All Innovations, on which we have bestowed 
much attention, by a searching investigation of the most reliable 
authorities, being careful to furnish times, places and names. Our 
foot-notes are very copious. As supplemented to The Apostolic Church 
Restored, the History of All Innovations will prove to be of immense 
value to the reader, especially to the preacher and to journalists. The 
documents to which we have had access in the preparation of this work 
are not accessible to the general reader ; indeed, the facts are not access- 
ible to many scholars. P»y tracing up the origin of the various denom- 
inations—which an apostate Church has spawned upon the world — and 
by locating the origin of all innovations from the fourth century down 
to the present, we have identified the Church of Christ as established 

by the apostles. 

THE AUTHOR, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Preface iii 

Introduction v 

Contents ix 



FIRST PART. 

HISTORY OF REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 

The Primitive Church 1 

Union of Church and State 6 

Conflict between Church and State 9 

Culmination of the Papacy 12 

The Papacy and Episcopacy 17 

Leo X. and Luther 21 

The Dawn of the Reformation 24 

The Mystics 27 

Luther and the Man of Sin 30 

Origin of the Augsburg Confession. 38 

Reformation in Switzerland 45 

Origin of the Heidelberg Confession 49 

John Calvin and Calvinism .* 53 

Origin of the Church of England 61 

The Thirty-Nine Articles 65 

The Book of Common Prayer 70 

Origin of the Westminster Confession of Faith 77 

Origin of Congregationalism 85 

American Congregationalism 88 

(ix) 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Origin of the Baptist Church 93 

The Baptist Church in the United States 103 

Origin of Methodism 110 

Origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church 114 

Wesley not a Methodist 119 

The Reformation of the Nineteenth Century 127 

Attempts at Reformation 135 

The Word of God the Sole Rule of Action 139 

Attempts at Christian Union 144 

Fundamental Principles 148 

The Restoration 152 

The Bible the Only Creed 159 

Alexander Campbell Abandons Sectarianism 162 

Alexander Campbell Unites with the Baptists 168 

A Similar Reformation in Kentucky 175 

The Church of Christ Identified 181 

The Restoration of Apostolic Christianity 189 

History of Church Councils 195 

Apostolic Council 197 

( Iouncil of Nice 198 

The Nicene Creed 203 

Councils of Constantinople 208 

General Council of Ephesus 211 

Council of Chalcedon 213 

The Second Council of Nice 217 

Lateran Councils 221 

The Councils of Lyons 237 

Councils of Vienne 237 

Council of Constance 240 

The Council at Basle 241 

Council of Trent 245 



CONTENTS. XI 

SECOND PART. 

THE PEIMITIVE CHUECH AND INNOVATIONS. 

PAGE. 

Holy Water 255 

Fast of Lent 262 

Origin of Monastic Vows, Priestly Vestments and the 

Sign of the Cross ' 265 

Origin of the Mass and Celibacy 270 

Praying for the Dead 277 

Purgatory and Paschal Candles 284 

The Beginning of Popery 288 

Invocation of Saints , 295 

The Eucharist 296 

Images and Extreme Unction 299 

Universal Bishop . . 304 

Sacrifices for the Dead : 308 

Unction and Wax Candles 310 

Feasts of All Saints 313 

Election of Bishops by Emperors 316 

Introduction of Instrumental Music 318 

Private Masses 323 

Images in Public Worship 326 

The Real Presence 328 

Assumption of Temporal Power 331 

Tradition Placed on a Level with Divine Revelation. . . . 338 

Canonization of Saints , 340 

Baptizing Bells — Absolution 342 

Penance 345 

Redemption of Penances 346 

Compulsory Celibacy 349 

Monastictsm 354 

The Seven Sacraments 357 

Auricular Confession 361 

Decrees of the Council of Trent 363 



Xll CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Elevation of the Host 367 

Bible Forbidden to the Laity 371 

Red Hats, Scarlet Cloaks, Corpus Christi 372 

Indulgences 380 

The Papal Primacy • 384 

Rosary of the Virgin Mary 386 

Immaculate Conception 388 

Sale of Indulgences 394 

Council of Trent and Tradition 396 

Mortal Sin and Venial Sin 403 

Papal Usurpations 405 

The Pope Supreme Bishop 408 

Bull of Pope Pius IV 413 

Private Interpretation of the Scriptures Prohibited .... 418 
The Holy Mother Church Alone Interprets the Scriptures 425 

History of Infant Baptism 432 

Origin of Infant Baptism 438 

Validity of Baptism 444 

History of Sprinkling 451 

History of Sprinkling Continued 457 

History of Infant Baptism Continued 463 



THIRD PART. 

THE ARGUMENT OF CONCESSION. 

Immersion the Only Apostolic Baptism 471 

Pedobaptist Authorities , 477 

Testimony of the Encyclopedias 484 

Testimony of the Commentators '. 488 

Testimony of the Commentators Continued 493 



SUPPLEMENTARY. 



Infant Baptism 499 

Baptism of Infants 508 



HISTORY 



— OF- 



Reformatory Movements. 



FIRST PART. 



HISTORY OF 

Reformatory Moyemehts. 



THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 



One essential feature of Protestantism was the aboli- 
tion of the authority of the hierarchical order. In its 
mature form, as all history attests, the Reformation of 
the sixteenth century was a rejection of Papal and 
priestly authority. As antecedent to the rise of the 
Reformation, we propose to write on the origin and 
progressive development of the hierarchical system. The 
Papacy began by invading the personal rights and pre- 
rogatives of the disciples of Christ, who stood upon a 
common plane of equality, and by instituting a media- 
torial priesthood, which, setting aside the office of the 
great Mediator, assumed to mediate between God and 
man It was an invasion of that order of heaven, as 
recorded in the New Testament, which gave liberty to 
the soul and direct access to the Heavenly Father through 
the one High Priest of our salvation. The rise of sacer- 
dotalism destroyed the equality of discipleship. The 
disciples of Christ, under apostolic teaching, formed a 
community of brethren, who were associated upon a 
broad basis of equality, all of them being illuminated and 



2 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 

directed and united in the one Spirit. Their organiza- 
tion under Christ was a marvel of simplicity, and very 
Unlike that hierarchical system which in subsequent 
times overshadowed the Church of the living God — very 
dissimilar from the individual congregation where all the 
members served each other in love and faith. 

The New Testament records the fact that all Chris- 
tians, in a given locality, were united in one society, or 
ecdesia, the old Greek term for an assembly legally 
called and authorized. In each society there was a 
board of pastors, indifferently called elders, presbyters 
— a name taken from the synagogue — or interchange- 
ably styled bishops, overseers, a name given by the 
Greeks to persons charged with a guiding oversight in 
civil administration. In the election of these pastors — 
feeders of the flock — the body of disciples enjoyed a 
controlling voice, although as long as the apostles re- 
mained, their suggestions or appointments would natu- 
rally be accepted. These officers did not give up, at 
first, their secular employments ; they were not even, 
at the outset, intrusted as a peculiar function with the 
business of teaching, which was free to all, and especially 
imposed upon a class of persons who seemed designated 
by their various gifts for this work. The elders, with 
the deacons, whose business it was to look after the 
poor and to perform kindred duties, were the officers to 
whom each little separate community committed the 
lead in the management of its affairs. But, as we ap- 
proach the close of the second century, we find marked 
changes ; some of them of a portentous and dangerous 
character, and as already indicative of the fact that the 
apostasy had set in. The enlargement of the jurisdic- 
tion of bishops, by extending it over dependent churches 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 3 

in the neighborhood of the towns and cities, and the 
multiplying of church officers, were innovations signifi- 
cant of coming evils. By degrees church officers, by 
assuming powers which did not belong to them, grew 
into a distinct order, and placed themselves above the 
" laity " as the appointed medium of conveying to them 
the grace of God. A church in the capital of a prov- 
ince, with its bishop, easily acquired a precedence over 
the other churches and bishops in the same district, and 
thus the metropolitan system grew up. A higher grade 
of eminence was accorded to the bishops and churches 
of the principal cities, such as Rome, Alexander and 
Ephesus ; and thus we have the germs of a more 
extended hierarchical dominion. Even as early as the 
latter part of the second century, the Church had passed 
into the condition of a visible, organized commonwealth. 
We find Irenaeus, who was bishop of Lyons from 177 to 
202, uttering the famous dictum that where the Church 
is — meaning the visible body with its clergy and sacra- 
ments — there is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit 
of God is, there is the Church. To be cut off from this 
visible Church is to be separated from Christ. By the 
clergy of that period, this Church was made the door of 
access to the favor of God. We can also readily account 
for the importance that began to be attached to tradi- 
tion; for the defenders of the true Church of Christ 
against the corrupting encroachments of gnosticism, 
naturally fell back on the historical evidence afforded by 
the presence and testimony of the leading churches, 
which the apostles themselves had planted. Irenaeus 
and Tertullian (the latter a presbyter at Carthage, where 
he died between the years 220 and 240) direct the in- 
quirer to go to Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, to the places 



4 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 

where the apostles had taught, and ascertain whether 
the novel speculations of the time could justly claim the 
sanction of the first disciples of Christ, or had been 
transmitted from them. 

Says a distinguished author : " It is the pre-eminence 
of Rome, as the custodian of traditions, that Irenaeus 
means to assert in a noted passage (lib. III. iii. 2) in 
which he exalts the Church." It was not long until the 
unity of the Church, as a visible, towering organization, 
was realized in the unity of the sacerdotal body. It 
was but a natural and logical sequence to seek and find 
a head for this traditionized and secularized body ; and 
where should it be found except in mystic Rome, the 
capital of the world, the seat of the predominating 
Church, where Paul had suffered martyrdom, and where 
many believed (but erroneously) that Peter also perished 
as a martyr. After the sacerdotal order had raised 
Peter to be chief of the apostles, and when, near the 
close of the second century, the idea was suggested and 
became current that Peter had served as bishop of the 
Roman Church, a strong foundation was laid in the 
minds of credulous men for a recognition of the primacy 
of that Church and of its chief pastor. The first men- 
tion of Peter as bishop of Rome is found in the Clemen- 
tine Homilies, which were composed in the latter part of 
the second century. The habit of thus deferring to the 
See of Rome, as the center of ecclesiastical authority, so 
far advances upon the credulity of the people, that in 
the middle of the third century we find Cyprian, whose 
zeal for episcopal independence would not tolerate the 
subjection of one bishop to another, still speaking of 
that See as the chief source of sacerdotal unity. Rome 
was a mighty and a glorious city. The eyes of all 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. § 

nations were intently fixed upon it, as the metropolis of 
wealth and splendor and political power. It was an 
easy thing to transfer this awe and reverence to the 
Church which had its seat in the Eternal City.** Leo I., 
with arrogant pretensions, claimed that the Roman Em- 
pire was built with reference to Christianity, and that 
Rome, for this reason, was chosen for the bishopric of 
the chief of the apostles. Leo flourished in the fifth 
century. 



UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 



The accession of Constantine (311) found the Church 
so firmly organized under its hierarchy that it could not 
be absolutely merged in the State, as might have been 
the result had its constitution been different. But 
under him and his successors, the supremacy of the 
State, with a large control of ecclesiastical affairs, was 
maintained by the emperors. General councils, for ex- 
ample, were convoked by them and presided over by 
their representatives, and conciliary decrees published 
as laws of the Empire. The Roman bishops felt it to 
be an honor to be judged only by the Emperor. In the 
closing period of imperial history, the emperors favored 
the ecclesiastical primacy of the Roman See, as a bond 
of unity in the Empire. Political disorders and conflict- 
ing interests tended to elevate the position of the Roman 
bishop, especially when he was a person of more than 
ordinary talents and energy. Leo the Great (440-461), 
the first, perhaps, who had conferred upon him the title 
of Pope, proved himself a pillar of strength in the midst 
of tumult and anarchy. His conspicuous services, as in 
shielding Rome from- the incursions of barbarians and 
protecting its inhabitants, facilitated the exercise of a 
spiritual jurisdiction that stretched not only over Italy, 
but as far as Gaul and Africa. To him was given by 
Valentinian III. (445) an imperial declaration which 
made him supreme over the Western Church, or the 
Church of Rome. We can not follow the alternations 

(6) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. J 

of the priestly powers of Rome, nor consume space by 
depicting the varying fortunes of popes and princes. 
We can record the fact that in the fifth century the fall 
of the Western Empire increased the authority of the 
bishop of Rome ; we can speak of the spread of M oham 
medanism from Africa and Spain into Europe ; of the 
alliance of the Papacy with the Franks in 750; of the 
rescue of the Papacy by Pepin and Charlemagne, and of 
the coronation of the latter by the hands of the Pope, 
in the Basilica of St. Peter, on Christmas Day, 800. 
Taking advantage of the conflicts and disorders in the 
empire of Charlemagne, and seizing the opportunity of 
his death, which created an era of political strife and 
unrest, the Roman bishops rapidly began to increase in 
power. It was in this period that the False or Pseudo- 
Isodorian Decretals appeared. These false decretals 
introduced principles of ecclesiastical law which made 
the Church dependent on the State, and elevated the 
Roman See to a position unknown to preceding ages. 
The immunity and high prerogatives of bishops, the 
exaltation of primates, as the servile tools of the popes, 
above metropolitans who were slavishly dependent upon 
secular rulers, and the ascription of the highest legisla- 
tive and judicial functions to the Roman Pontiff, were 
some of the leading and characteristic features of this 
spurious collection, which found its way into the codes 
of the canon law, and which radically modified the 
ancient ecclesiastical system. These false decretals first 
appeared about the middle of the ninth century, and 
they only needed a pope of sufficient talents and energy 
to give practical effect to such pernicious principles ; 
and such an instrument appeared in the person of Nich- 
olas I., between the years 858 and 867. Availing 



8 UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 

himself of a favorable opportunity, he brought Lothair 
II., king of Lorraine, under the censure of the Church, 
whom, in a case of matrimony, he compelled to submit 
to the decrees of the Papacy, while at the same time he 
deposed the archbishops who had endeavored to thwart 
his purpose. At the same time, Nicholas humbled 
Hincmar, the powerful archbishop of Rheims, who had 
disregarded the appeal which one of his bishops had 
made to Rome. 

According to Baronius, a distinguished Roman Cath^ 
olic annalist, the anarchical condition into which the 
Empire ultimately fell, left the Papacy, for a century 
and a half, the prey of Italian factions, by the agency of 
which the papal office was reduced to a lower point of 
moral degradation than it ever reached before or since. 
This period of moral and social debasement — during a 
considerable portion of which time harlots disposed of 
the papal office, and their paramours wore the tiara — 
was interrupted by the intervention of the German sov- 
ereigns, Otho I. and Otho II.; with the first of whom 
the Holy Roman Empire, in the sense in which the 
name is used in subsequent ages, the secular counter- 
part of the Papacy, derives its origin. The pontiffs 
preferred the sway of the emperors to that of the lawless 
Italian barons, says Von Raumer. This dark period, 
in which nearly all traces of apostolic usages disappeared, 
was terminated by Henry III., who appeared in Italy at 
the head of an army, and, in 1046, at the Synod of 
Sutri, which he had convoked, dethroned three rival 
popes, and raised to the vacant office one of his own 
bishops. The imperial office had passed into the hands 
of the German kings, and they, like their Carlovingian 
predecessors, whose acts in history we have purposely 
omitted, rescued the Papacy from destruction. 



CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 



When we reach the age of Hildebrand (1073-1085), 
we find plots and counterplots the order of the day. 

/While this pretended reformer apparently sought a 
thorough reformation of morals and a restoration of 
ecclesiastical order and sacerdotal discipline, he under- 
took at the same time to subordinate the State to the 
Church, and to subject the Church, such as it was, to 
the absolute authority of the Pope./* The course pursued 
by Hildebrand, and by aspiring pontiffs who succeeded 
him, in the course of time resulted in an open conflict 
between the Papacy and the Empire. ./Here follows a 
severe and persistent contest, in which the Papacy gain 
a decided advantage. That the Emperor was commis 
sioned to preside over the temporal affairs of men, while 
it was left for the Pope to guide and govern them in 
things spiritual, was a criterion too vague for defining 
the limits of temporal and spiritual jurisdiction. The 
co-ordination, the equilibrium of the civil and ecclesias- 
tical powers, was a relation with which, as any one 
might know, who is conversant with the history of 
despotic governments, neither party would be content. 
It was a struggle on both sides for universal monarchy. 

I The apostolic order of things now completely fades out 
of view. The popes, by continual strategy and rare 
diplomacy, gained an ascendency over Western Europe, 
and, for successive years, the Pope everywhere was the 
acknowledged head of Latin w Christianity^ Sometimes 

(9) \ 



10 CONFLICT BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 

the Roman pontiffs, when they saw an opportunity of 
centralizing and consolidating their system of spiritual 
despotism, became the champions then, as they have 
frequently since, as suits their base designs, of popular 
freedom. Acting in the role of Mephistopheles, they 
can, in turn, become republicans, monarchists, demo- 
crats, autocrats and imperialists, if by such transforma- 
tion they can subserve the interests of the Papacy. The 
end sanctifies the means. The humiliation of Henry 
IV. in 1077, whom Hildebrand kept waiting during 
three winter days, in the garb of a penitent, in the yard 
of the castle of Canossa, gives evidence of the supremacy 
of the Papacy in the Medieval Age. The Worms Con- 
cordat which Calixtus II. concluded with Henry V. in 
1 122, and the acknowledgment which Frederick Bar- 
barossa made of his sin and error to Alexander III. at 
Venice, in 1177, after a long contest for imperial prerog- 
atives, are facts which furnish evidence of the triumph 
of the Papacy. The triumph of the Papacy appeared 
complete when Gregory X. (1 271-1276) directed the 
electoral princes to choose an emperor within a given 
interval, and threatened, in case they refused compli- 
ance with the mandate, to appoint, in conjunction with 
his cardinals, an emperor for them ; and when Rudolph 
of Hapsburg, whom they proceeded to select, acknowl- 
edged in the most unreserved and subservient manner 
the Pope's supremacy. 

These are strange developments of church affairs, 
compared with the origin of Christianity and primitive 
gospel simplicity. The facts that we glean and scrap 
from the Dark Ages, are the full fruitage of the work- 
ings of the ''mystery of iniquity" alluded to by the 
apostle Paul. It is impossible to furnish the details of 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. II 

history within our limited space, but it is our purpose 
to give a connected view of the rise and development of 
the Papacy, and to represent in as few words as possible 
the ruin of the ancient- Church, and the subsequent 
growth of an apostate Church. And this we do in 
order to show the relation which Romanism sustains to 
Protestantism, and the relation which we sustain to both 
these in our plea for a perfectly restored Christianity. 
That there was a remnant of the true worshipers of God 
found here and there during the Dark Ages, such as the 
Nestorians, is a pleasing fact well established in history ; 
but that nearly all traces of the primitive order of 
things, as established by the apostles of Jesus Christ, 
are lost sight of in the raging conflicts of rival princes 
and aspiring ecclesiastics, both of which powers,' as they 
alternated repeatedly between victory and defeat, crushed 
down the liberties of the people and despoiled them of 
their personal rights, are facts patent and intelligible to 
all readers of history. We wish the people of this 
generation, as well as the people of succeeding genera- 
tions, to know the reasons why we stand apart from all 
denominations, Papal and Protestant, and why we pro- 
pose to stand only upon apostolic ground. 



CULMINATION OF THE PAPACY, 



From the best authorities we have consulted, we learn 
that it was during the progress of the struggle with the 
Empire that the Papal powers may be said to have cul- 
minated. In the period between 1198 and 1216, in 
which Innocent III. reigned, the Papal despotism shone 
forth in all its ecclesiastical splendor. The enforcement 
of celibacy had placed the entire body of the clergy in 
a closer relation to the sovereign Pontiff. The Vicar of 
Peter had become the Vicar of God and of Christ. The 
idea of a theocracy on earth, in which the Pope should 
presumptuously rule in this character, fully possessed 
the mind of Innocent, who, having profited by the bold- 
ness and persistency and political finesse of Gregory 
VII., excelled the latter in diplomacy and political 
strategy. He worked himself up to believe that the 
two swords of temporal and ecclesiastical power had 
both been given to Peter and his successors, so that the 
earthly sovereign derived his prerogative from the great 
Head of the Church. The Pope was constituted to 
shine as the great luminary of the world, and the king 
or civil ruler could only shine from borrowed light. 
Acting on this theory — the consummation of spiritual 
despotism — Innocent assumed the position of arbiter in 
the conflicts of nations, and claimed the right to 
dethrone kings and princes at his pleasure. ^We have 
not space to give examples of his despotism, with which 
the pages of history are disgraced. 

(12) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 13 

In the Church he assumed the character of universal 
bishop, based upon the theory that all episcopal power 
was originally deposited in Peter and in his successors, 
and communicated through this source to bishops, who 
were in this manner constituted the only vicars of the 
Pope, and who might at any time be deposed at the 
will or beck of the Pope. To him belonged all legisla- 
tive authority, councils having merely a deliberate 
power, while the right to convoke them and to ratify or 
annul their proceedings belonged exclusively to him. 
He alone, in the role ot an absolute autocrat, was 
exempt from all law, and might dispense with them in 
the case of others. Even the doctrine of Papal infalli- 
bility, which brought forth its legitimate fruit in the 
reign of Pope Pius IX. , was discovered in the writings 
of Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent theologian of 
that age. As the feudal system gradually gave way to 
political monarchy, so the independency of the churches 
was absorbed and concentrated in the Pope. The right 
to confirm the appointment of all bishops, the right 
even to nominate bishops and to dispose of all bene- 
fices, the exclusive right of absolution, canonization and 
dispensation, the right to<assess the churches — such were 
some of the iniquitous prerogatives, for the enforcement 
of which Papal legates, clothed with limitless powers, 
were commissioned to penetrate all the countries of 
Europe, in order to override the authority of bishops 
and of local ecclesiastical tribunals. About this time 
originated the famous mendicant orders of St. Francis 
and St. Dominic, from which beggarly institutions there 
came forth a swarm of itinerant preachers, who, as the 
pets of the Pope, were very intimately associated with 
his Pontifical Highness, and who were ever ready, as 



14 CULMINATION OF THE PAPACY. 

pliant tools, to defend Papal prerogatives and Papal 
extortions against whatever opposition might arise from 
the secular clergy. Insinuating themselves, serpent- 
like, within the walls of the universities of Europe, they 
defined and defended, in lectures replete with subtilties 
and sophistries, and by a pretended array of scholastic 
wisdom, all the usurpations of the Papacy. 

Conflicts between popes and temporal princes contin- 
ued. The Papal assertions in regard to the two swords, 
the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the secular 
power, and the subjection of every living soul to the 
Pope, who judges all and is judged by none, were met 
by a united and determined resistance on the part of 
the French people. When Boniface VIII. summoned 
the French clergy to Rome to sit in judgment on the 
acts of the king, the summons aroused a storm of indig- 
nation. The Papal Bull, snatched from the hand of the 
legate, was publicly burned in Notre Dame, on the nth 
of February, 1302. /'The insulted clergy of France flatly 
denied the proposition that in secular affairs the Pope 
stands above the king. The prestige of the Papacy now 
began to wane rapidly./' There was an expansion of 
knowledge in every direction./ Political reformers came 
to the front. Literature began to spread, and poets 
and jurists, of learning and distinction, began to exert a 
powerful influence in the direction of civil and religious 
liberty. Then comes the period of the Babylonian 
captivity, or the long residence of the Pope at Avignon 
— called the Babylonian captivity, because it continued 
about as long as the captivity of the Jews in ancient 
Babylon— and the period of the great schism, when, 
during a great part of this period, the Papacy was 
enslaved to France, and served the behests of the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 5 

French Court. Various forms of ecclesiastical oppres- 
sion followed, which involved Germany, England and 
other countries in humiliation. The revenues of the 
Court at Avignon were supplied by means of extortions 
and usurpations which had hitherto been without paral- 
lel. Every form of extortion was resorted to for replen- 
ishing the Papal treasury. France was willing, as long 
as the Papacy remained her tool, to indulge the popes 
in extravagant assumptions of authority. Avignon be- 
came the headquarters of an extremely luxurious and 
profligate court— a cesspool of vice — the boundless im- 
morality of which has been vividly depicted by Petrarch, 
who himself was an eye-witness to the shameful abom- 
inations. Then arose the great battle of the fourteenth 
century, between the Monarchists and the Papists, 
when such celebrated writers as Marsilius of Padua, 
William of Occam and Dante, as the defenders of the 
" Monarchists," vigorously denounced the presumptions 
of the Papacy. ' ' These bold writings attacked the 
collective hierarchy in all its fundamental principles ; 
they inquired, with a sharpness of criticism before un- 
known, into the nature of the priestly office ; they 
restricted the notion of heresy, to which the Church 
had given so wide an extension ; they appealed, finally. 
to the Holy Scriptures, as the only valid authority in 
matters of faith. As fervent monarchists, these theolo- 
gians subjected the Church to the State. Their heret- 
ical tendencies announced a new process in the minds 
of men, in which the unity of the Catholic Church went 
down." 

During the schism which ensued upon the election of Urban VI., in 
1378, there was presented before Christendom the spectacle of rival 
popes imprecating curses upon each other ; each with his court to be 



l6 CULMINATION OF THE PAPACY. 

maintained by taxes and contributions, which had to be largely in- 
creased on account of the division. When men were compelled to 
choose between rival claimants of the office, it was inevitable that 
there should arise a still deeper investigation into the origin and 
grounds of Papal authority. Inquirers reverted to the earlier ages of 
the Church, in order to find both the causes and the cure of the dread- 
ful evils under which Christian society was suffering. More than one 
jurist and theologian called attention to the ambition of the popes for 
secular rule and to their oppressive domination over the Church, as 
the prime fountain of this frightful disorder. — "History of the Reforma- 
tion," by Gtorge P. Fisher. 



THE PAPACY AND EPISCOPACY. 



A fruitless attempt was made, at about this period, 
to reform the Church "in head and members." Princes 
interposed to make peace between popes, as popes had 
before interposed to produce peace between princes. 
According to Laurent (La Reforme), it is the era of the 
reforming councils of Pisa, Constance and Basle, when, 
largely under the leadership of the Paris theologians 
(1409- 1443), a reformation in the morals and adminis- 
tration of the Church was sought through the agency 
of these great assemblies. It was now a conflict for 
supremacy between Papacy and Episcopacy. The Pope 
was regarded as primate of the Church, but at the same 
time it was asserted that bishops derived their grace 
and authority for the discharge of their office, not from 
the Pope, but from the same source as that from which 
he derived his powers. /It was held that the Church, 
when convened by its representatives in a general coun- 
cil, is the supreme council, to which the Pope himself 
is subordinate and responsible. ''Their aim," says 
Professor Fisher, "was to reduce him to the rank of a 
constitutional instead of an absolute monarch. The 
Gallican theologians held to an infallibility residing 
somewhere in the Church ; most of them, and ultimately 
all of them, placing this infallibility in ecumenical coun- 
cils. The flattering hopes under which the Council of 
Pisa opened its proceedings, were doomed to disap- 
pointment, in consequence of the reluctance of the 

3 (17) 



15 THE PAPACY AND EPISCOPACY. 

reformers to push through their measures without a 
pope, and the failure of Alexander V. to redeem the 
pledges which he had made them prior to his election. 
Moreover, the schism continued, with three popes in 
the room of two. The Council of Constance began 
under the fairest auspices. The resolve to vote by na- 
tions was a significant sign of a new order of things, and 
crushed the design of the flagitious Pope, John XXIII., 
to control the assembly by the preponderance of Italian 
votes. Solemn declarations of the supremacy and 
authority of the Council were adopted, and were car- 
ried out in the actual deposition of the infamous Pope. 
But the plans of reform were mostly wrecked on the 
same rock on which they had broken at Pisa. A pope 
must be elected; and Martin V., once chosen, by skill- 
ful management and by separate arrangements with 
different princes, was unable to undo, to a great ex- 
tent, the salutary work of the Council, but before its 
adjournment he reasserted the very doctrine of Papal 
superiority which the Council had repudiated. The 
substantial failure of this Council, the most august eccle- 
siastical assemblage of the Middle Acres, to achieve 
reforms which thoughtful and good men everywhere 
deemed indispensable, was a proof that some more radi- 
cal means of reformation would have to be adopted. 
But another grand effort in the same direction was put 
forth ; and the Council of Basle, notwithstanding that 
it adopted numerous measures of a beneficent character, 
which were acceptable to the Catholic nations, had, at 
last, no better issue; for most of the advantages that 
were granted to them, and the concessions that were 
made by the popes, especially to German}-, they con- 
trived afterward, by adroit diplomacy, to recall." 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 10, 

History gives abundant evidence of the fact that no 
good ever came from human councils which undertook 
to interfere with and modify the doctrine and govern- 
ment of the Church of Christ. Only evil, and unmiti- 
gated evil, ever emanated from such a source. The 
fifteenth century was characterized by national rivalries, 
and by the plots and counterplots of aspiring princes, 
who served the Papal cause, or compelled the Papacy 
to serve them, as self-interest might dictate. It is diffi- 
cult to tell which exercised the most chicanery, and 
which practiced the most intrigue, or which sank to the 
lowest depths to gain power — the civil or ecclesiastical 
powers. One thing is certain, and that is, that selfish- 
ness reigned supreme. In illustration of this statement, 
it is recorded that Innocent VIII., besides advancing 
the fortunes of seven illegitimate children, and waging 
two wars with Naples, received an annual tribute from 
the Sultan for detaining his brother and rival in prison, 
instead of sending him to lead a force against the Turks, 
the enemies and despoilers of Christendom. Alexander 
VI., whose deep depravity recalls the dark days of the 
Papacy in the tenth century, busied himself in founding 
a principality for his favorite son, that monster of ini- 
quity, Caesar Borgia, and in amassing treasures, by base 
and cruel means, for the support of the licentious 
Roman Court. He is said to have died of the poison 
which he had caused to be prepared for a wealthy car- 
dinal, who bribed the head cook to set it before the 
Pope himself. If Julius II. satisfied the extortionate 
demands of his relatives in a more peaceable way, he 
still found his enjoyment in carnal war and savage con- 
quest, and made it his chief occupation to the States of 
the Church. According to the testimony of Gieseler, 



20 THE PAPACY AND EPISCOPACY. 

the eminent German historian, he organized alliances 
and defeated one enemy after another, forcing Venice 
to submit to his outrages, and not hesitating, old man 
as he was, to take the field himself, in the time of win- 
ter. In 1 510, having brought in the French, and having 
joined the League of Cambray for the sake of subduing 
Venice, he called to his aid the Venetians for the expul- 
sion of the French. The Church, and especially the 
priesthood of Rome, had become thoroughly demoral- 
ized ; and this was the condition of things on the eve of 
the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 



LEO X. AND LUTHER. 



At the opening of the Reformation, Leo X. was 
made a cardinal at the age of thirteen, and elected Pope 
at the age of thirty-seven. He was more " familiar with 
the fables of Greece, and the delights of the poets, than 
with the history of the Church and the doctrine of the 
Fathers." He indulged in profane studies, and gave 
much of his time to hunting, jesting and pageants. He 
sported in a gay and luxurious court, and made religion 
subordinate to the fascinations of literature, art and 
music. Vast sums of money, which his religious sub- 
jects were obliged to contribute, were lavished upon his 
relatives, and the historian Ranke has characterized his 
habits of life as "a sort of intellectual sensuality." 
Luther began his Reformation in the reign of this cold- 
hearted Pope. "During the Middle Ages," says 
Coleridge, "the Papacy was another name for a con- 
federation of learned men in the west of Europe against 
the barbarians and ignorance of the times The Pope 
was the chief of this confederacy ; and, so long as he 
retained that character, his power was just and irresist- 
ible. It was the principal means of preserving lor us 
and for all posterity all that we now have of the illumin- 
ation of past ages. But as soon as the Pope made a 
separation between his character as premier clerk in 
Christendom and as a secular prince — as soon as he 
began to squabble for towns and castles —then he at 
once broke the charm and gave birth to a revolution. 

(21) 



22 LEO X. AND LUTHER. 

Everywhere, but especially throughout the north of 
Europe, the breach of feeling and sympathy went on 
widening ; so that all Germany, England, Scotland and 
other countries, started, like giants out of their sleep, 
at the first blast of Luther's trumpet." — Table Talk, July 
24, 1832. 

Coleridge may have seen a special providence in the 
rise of the Papacy, as a "confederation of learned men 
in the west of Europe ; " but we can not see the special 
providence. We see the Papacy, with all its worldly 
wisdom, sagacity, duplicity, diplomacy; with all its 
arrogance, assumption of power, corruptions and abomi- 
nations. We also see its downfall at the approach of 
Bible knowledge, apostolic teaching and popular edu- 
cation. 

The age immediately preceding the Lutheran Refor- 
mation was characterized by the dogmatic system, as 
elaborated by the schoolmen from the abundant mate- 
rials furnished by tradition and sanctioned by the mon- 
grel Church ; which constituted a vast body of mystic 
and scholastic doctrine, and which every man of the 
least religious pretensions was bound to accept in all 
particulars, or come under the ban of excommunication. 
The polity of the mongrel Church lodged all ecclesiasti- 
cal rule in the hands of a superior class, the besotted 
priesthood, who were commissioned as the indispensable 
almoners of divine grace. The worship centered in the 
sacrifice of the mass, a constantly repeated miracle 
wrought by the hands of the wily and winsome priest. 
Justification by meritorious works, without respect to 
character and a godly life, was stereotyped into a wicked 
dogma, which was eating out the vitals of all religious 
life. Human merit was substituted for the mercy of 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 23 

God. A religion of external performances, which con- 
sisted in quantity rather than in quality, and various 
modes of pretentious abstinences, with the institutions 
of monasticism and the celibacy of the priesthood, were 
prominent features in the existing order of things. 
According to Ullman (Reformatoi'en von der Reformatioii) , 
the masses, pilgrimages, fastings, flagellations, prayers 
to saints, homage to their relics and images, and similar 
features so prominent in medieval mysticism, which passed 
as piety, illustrate the essential character of the times. 
" The forerunners of the Reformation have been prop- 
erly divided,' 7 says Professor Fisher, quoting from Dr. 
Ullman, "into two classes. The first of them consists 
of the men who, in the quiet path of theological research 
and teaching, or by practical exertions in behalf of a 
contemplative, spiritual tone of piety, were undermining 
the traditional system. The second embraces names 
who are better known, for the reason that they 
attempted to carry out their ideas practically in the way 
of effecting ecclesiastical changes. The first class are 
more obscure, but were not less influential in preparing 
the ground for the Reformation. Protestantism was a 
return to the Scriptures as the authentic source of Chris- 
tian knowledge, and to the principle that salvation, that 
inward peace, is not from the Church or from human 
works, ethical or ceremonial, but through Christ alone, 
received by the soul in an act of trust. Whoever, 
whether in the chair of theology, in the pulpit, through 
the devotional treatise, or by fostering the study of 
languages and of history, or in perilous combat with 
ecclesiastical abuses, drew the minds of men to the 
Scriptures and to a more spiritual conception of religion, 
was, in a greater or less measure, a reformer before the 
Reformation." 



THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION, 



From the twelfth century down to the dawn of the 
Reformation, there were found here and there, especially 
in Southern France and Northern Italy, "anti-sacerdotal 
sects," who indulged in vehement invectives against the 
shameful immoralities of the priesthood and their bane- 
ful usurpations of power. Among- these sects in South- 
ern France, we may mention the noted Albigenses, who 
vigorously opposed the authority of ecclesiastical tradi 
tion and of the hierarchy, but who were finally crushed 
out of existence by means of a bloody and heartless 
crusade, instigated by Innocent III., and which, through 
his agency, was followed up by the iniquitous Inquisi- 
tion, which here had its origin. " Catharists " was a 
general name applied to these anti-sacerdotal sects. 
Succeeding the Albigenses, there appear in 1170, the 
Waldenses, under the leadership of Peter Waldo, of 
Lyons. Because of their attachment to the Scriptures, 
and of their fiery opposition to clerical usurpation and 
profligacy, they also became forerunners of the Refor- 
mation. Disaffection and unrest, and a stubborn resist- 
ance against the aggressions of the priesthood, were 
experienced in all quarters, especially among the poor 
and dependent classes. 

The Inquisition had done its bloody work in the ex- 
tirpation of all such heretics as the Albigenses and the 
Waldenses. More radical and influential reformers have 
now moved to the front, such as Huss, Jerome of Prague 

(24) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2$ 

and John Wickliffe. But the theologians of Paris made 
themselves infamous and almost outstripped their Papal 
antagonists, during the sessions of the Council of Con- 
stance, in their violent treatment of Huss, and in the 
alacrity with which they condemned him and Jerome to 
the stake. One hundred and fifty years before the days 
of Luther, Wickliffe proved himself a formidable antag- 
onist to the pretensions of the Papacy. He anticipated 
the grand Reformation with a knowledge of the religious 
situation, with a perspicuity of genius, and by apostolic 
blows of radical reform, that shook the very foundations 
of the Papal edifice. He set aside Papal decrees by a 
direct appeal to the Holy Scriptures. He denies tran- 
substantiation ; he boldly asserts that in the primitive 
Church there were only two classes of church officers ; 
denies that there is scriptural authority for the rites of 
confirmation and extreme unction ; advocates non-inter- 
ference on the part of the clergy with civil affairs and 
temporal authority ; condemns auricular confession ; 
holds that the exercise of the power to bind and loose is 
of no effect, unless it conforms to the doctrine of Christ ; 
is opposed to the multiplied ranks of the clergy — popes, 
cardinals, patriarchs, monks, canons, et at.; repudiates 
the doctrine of indulgences and supererogatory merits, 
the doctrine of the excellence of poverty, as that was 
held and as it lay at the foundation of the mendicant 
orders; and he sets himself against artificial church 
music, pictures in worship, consecration with the use of 
oil and salt, canonization, pilgrimages, church asylums 
for criminals, and the celibacy of the clergy. These 
facts are all clearly authenticated by reliable historians. 
The followers of Wickliffe were called Lollards. It is a 
remarkable fact that Wickliffe predicted that from the 



26 THE DAWN OF THE REFORMATION. 

monks themselves there would arise men who would 
abandon their false interpretations of Scriptures, and, 
returning to the apostolic order of things, would recon- 
struct the Church in the spirit of Paul. The work of 
reform as inaugurated by Wickliffe, we may remark, in 
passing, presents many features resembling the work of 
reform as inaugurated by Thomas and Alexander Camp- 
bell. The latter was an ardent admirer of the illustrious 
Wickliffe. It was in the Council of Constance that 
Huss asserted the right of private judgment. This was 
going behind the Council ; and for his temerity he was 
commanded to retract his avowals of opinion, which he 
refused to do until he could be convinced by argument, 
and by citations from the Scriptures, that his sentiments 
were erroneous. The right of private judgment became 
one of the prominent and distinctive principles of Prot- 
estantism. Other reformers sprang up, whom we can 
not mention, such as the distinguished and eloquent 
Savonarola, who lived at Florence, where he carried on 
his work of moral reform, until his death in 1498. \ e 
exposed the demoralized condition of the mongrel 
Church, and for laying bare the rottenness of the Papal 
system, he forfeited his life under the flagitious Alex- 
ander VI., but predicted a coming reformation. 



THE MYSTICS. 



The Reformation of the sixteenth century was pre 
ceded by a school of men called Mystics, of whom the 
noted Anselm was the father. The characteristic of the 
Mystics is the sensation of feeling, rather than of believ- 
ing ; the preference of intuition to logic; the quest for 
knowledge through light imparted to feeling, rather 
than by processes of the intellect ; the indwelling of 
God in the soul, elevated to a holy calm by the con- 
sciousness of his presence; absolute self renunciation 
and the absorption of the human will into the divine ; 
silent meditation and the ecstatic mood. The character- 
istic spirit of this mystical school, which was a recoil 
from dogmatic theology, and from the extravagant use 
of outward sacraments and ceremonies, was illustrated 
by Thomas a Kempis, in his celebrated work, entitled 
" The Imitation of Christ," which it is said has probably 
had a larger circulation than any other book except the 
Bible. Luther himself was more or less influenced by 
the doctrines of the Mystics, especially by the writings 
of John Tauler and Thomas a Kempis. 

The Reformation was preceded by a revival of learn- 
ing — a new era of intellectual culture — in which three 
eminent w r riters — Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio — made 
themselves distinguished. Scholasticism, which for sev- 
eral hundred years had been dominant in the medieval 
ages, gradually gave way as books began to multiply, 
and as the Scriptures continued to be translated into the 

(27) 



28 THE MYSTICS. 

native languages of the people. The Schoolmen and 
the Mystics began to retire to the background imme- 
diately upon the introduction of the art of printing, and 
as distinguished scholars, coming to the front, began to 
test the doctrinal and ecclesiastical system of that age 
by a translation of the Old and New Testament from the 
original, the original fountain of truth having been sup- 
pressed by the Papacy, and the mass of the people 
deprived of the key of knowledge. The gigantic fabric 
of Latin Christianity, that vast receptacle of idolatry and 
pagan superstition, began to quake at the near approach 
of intelligent faith and reason, and of civil and religious 
liberty. The Papacy could no longer endure the light 
of investigation. But the revival of literature in Italy 
was, to a considerable extent, the revival of paganism. 
' ' Even an Epicurean infidelity," says Professor Fisher 
in his History of the Reformation, "as to the foundation 
of religion, which was caught from Lucretius and from 
the dialogues of Cicero, infected a wide circle of literary 
men. Preachers, in a strain of florid rhetoric, would 
associate the names of Greek and Roman her6es with 
those of the apostles and saints, and with the name of 
the Savior himself. If an example of distinguished 
piety was required, reference would be made to Numa 
Pompilius. So prevalent was disbelief respecting the 
fundamental truths of natural religion, that the Council 
of the Lateran, under Leo X., felt called upon to affirm 
the immortality and individuality of the soul." It ap- 
peared as if the gods of the old mythology had risen 
from the dead, if we may judge by the sentiments of the 
poets and rhetoricians of that literary revival, "while in 
the minds of thinking men Plato and Plotinus had sup- 
planted Paul and Isaiah." The influence of the classic 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2Q. 

school upon the Church in Italy, as described by Guizot 
{History of Civilisation, lect. xi.), is fearful to contem- 
plate. As a specimen of his delineation of the crooked 
ness of the times, he says that the Church in Italy 
"gave herself up to all the pleasures of an indolent, 
elegant, licentious civilization; to a taste for letters, the 
arts, and social and physical enjoyments." 

On the principle that like causes produce like effects, 
may not the study of the same classics revive a love for 
pagan literature in our times; and is it not now the ten- 
dency of pulpit rhetoricians, as they come from our col- 
leges dripping with the distillations of pagan philosophy, 
to supplant Paul and Isaiah by the introduction of Plato 
and Plotinus ? And how often do we hear college fledg- 
lings, and some older ones, who consider themselves 
"advanced thinkers," associating the names of Greek 
and Roman heroes with those of the apostles. and saints, 
and even with the name of the Savior himself. 

The religious condition of things in Germany, at the 
outbreak of the Reformation, was far different from that 
of Italy. Reuchlin and Erasmus, two of the most emi- 
nent scholars of the age, taking advantage of the revival 
of literature, made it contribute to the purification of the 
morals of the people, and to an earnest and vigorous 
investigation of the Scriptures. These were the men 
who furnished Luther, the great champion of the Refor- 
mation, with the literary munitions of war that crushed 
the dominion of the Papacy, and which liberated the 
masses from ignorance and foul superstition. 



LUTHER AND THE MAN OF SIN. 



The people of this generation have a just right to 
know why we propose, and strenuously labor for, a 
thorough restoration of the apostolic order of things, 
and why, religiously, we reject all human authority and 
accept only the law and authority of Jesus the Christ. 
For more than a half century we have kept this grand 
proposition before the eyes of all men. It is due to the 
rising generation — doubly due to our own children — 
that we should furnish the most substantial reasons for 
having inaugurated a movement as radical and far-reach- 
ing as that which was inaugurated by Christ and his 
apostles. We propose more than a reformation of refor- 
mations. We go back of all reformations, and plant 
ourselves upon apostolic ground. It is a fact patent to 
all men acquainted with ecclesiastical history, that there 
is not a Protestant denomination in existence that has 
entirely emerged from the great apostasy of 1260 years' 
continuance, and that has effectively cleared itself of the 
mystic influences of spiritual Babylon. No denomina- 
tion, however respectable it may appear in the eyes of 
the world, can claim identity with the Church of Christ, 
as founded by his apostles, as long as it countenances 
human dogmas, substitutes theories for facts, supplants 
the law and authority of Christ by laws of expediency, 
changes the ordinances of the Church, mystifies the 
design of the ordinances, bears titles which the Spirit 

(30) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 31 

never authorized, and carnalizes the worship of the true 
and living God. 

It is our purpose, in these essays, to show the origin 
and drift of the several reformations from the days of 
Luther down to the present time, and to show also, in 
tracing out these events, that not one of the so-called 
reformatory movements ever resulted in the full restora- 
tion of Apostolic Christianity. We write for those who 
neither read nor investigate, but who ought to read and 
investigate. Many of our own people, which statement 
includes many of our own preachers, are not posted on 
these questions as they ought to be, while professing at 
the same time to stand upon the only true and tenable 
ground. 

Luther was a great power in crushing the Man of Sin, 
but he did not succeed in grinding him to powder. 
Luther was first aroused by the visible presence of a 
corrupt priesthood. The origin of the Reformation of 
the sixteenth century was quite humble and somewhat 
indefinite. Pope Leo X. had arranged for a very exten- 
sive sale of indulgences. He gave out as a pretext for 
the outrage that the proceeds of the sale were intended 
for a war against the Turks and the erection of St. 
Peter's Church. It was quite generally believed that 
the real destination of the money was to defray the 
exorbitant expenditures of the Pope's Court and to serve 
as a marriage dowry to his sister. Archbishop Albert, 
of Mentz, a man whose character was no better than 
that of Leo X , authorized the sale in Germany on con- 
dition that fifty per cent, should flow into his own 
pocket. Tetzef. a Dominican friar, carried on the trade 
with such a dash of effrontery as to outrage the sen- 
timents of thousands of honest and sincere people. 



32 LUTHER AND THE MAN OF SIN. 

Luther, then a young monk in an Augustinian convent, 
was among the first to rise against this profanation of 
pure religion, and to conscientiously protest against the 
abomination. When a young student, he had been 
driven by his anxiety for the salvation of his soul into 
the seclusion of a convent. After long doubts and 
many mental troubles, he had derived from a profound 
stud\ T of the Scriptures, and of the writings of Augus- 
tine and Tauler, the consolatory belief that man is to be 
saved, not by his own works of righteousness, but by 
faith in God through Jesus Christ. As an earnest Chris- 
tian man, who had taken upon himself a solemn obliga- 
tion to teach a pure religion, and who, as we have reason 
to believe, sincerely believed in the Christianity of the 
Holy Scriptures, he felt himself impelled to enter an 
energetic protest against the daring deeds of Tetzel. In 
accordance with the principles of the Church of Rome, 
he addressed himself to several neighboring bishops, 
urging them to stop the sale of indulgences; but, not 
heeding his appeal, he resolved to act upon his own 
account. 

It was on the eve of All-Saints' Day October 31, 15 17, 
that lie affixed to the Castle Church of Wittenberg the 
celebrated ninety-five theses, which bold act has gener- 
ally been regarded as the beginning of the Lutheran 
Reformation. /"But both Papal and Protestant writers 
ar<- agreed that these theses involved by no means, on 
Luther's part, a conscious renunciation of the Roman 
Catholic doctrine. Luther himself made this manifestly 
clear by his subsequent appeal to the Pope, and also by 
the fact that he was attempting the r formation and not 
the disorganization of the Church. ^His opposition to 
the corruptions of Rome was but a reflex of public opin- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 33 

ion, which, by this time, had become wide-spread. The 
Pope became alarmed, and was startled, as by an elec- 
tric shock, when he discovered finally that the humble 
and obscure monk, whom he at first feigned to despite, 
had sent an irresistible impulse all over the religious 
world. Immediate steps were taken to arrest, if possi- 
ble, the progress of Luther's revolutionary movement, . 
At first the Pope summoned Luther to Rome ; but at 
the request of the University of Wittenberg, and the 
Elector of Saxony, the concession was made that the 
Papal legate, Thomas de Vio (better known in history 
as Cajetanus), should examine Luther in a paternal and 
conciliatory manner. Luther's characteristic line of 
defense was the rejection of the arguments as taken from 
the Fathers and the scholastics, and the demand to be 
refuted by arguments cited from the Bible. After hear- 
ing that the Pope had issued a fresh Papal bull in behalf 
of indulgences, Luther changed his appeal to an ecu- 
menical council. Soon after this the Court of Rome 
found it expedient to change its policy with Luther, and 
to win him back by compromise and kindliness. The 
Papal chamberlain, Karl Von Miltitz, a native of Sax- 
ony, was so far successful that Luther promised to write 
letters in which he would admonish all persons to be 
obedient and respectful to the Church of Rome, and to 
write to the Pope to assure him that he had never 
thought of infringing upon the rights and privileges of 
the Mother Church. History informs us that the letter 
was actually indited ; its language is replete with expres- 
sions of condescension, and it exalts the Roman Church 
above everything but Christ himself. He also promised 
to discontinue the controversy if his opponents would 
agree to do the same. But only a brief period elapsed 
4 



34 LUTHER AND THE MAX OF SIN. 

before he was drawn into the Disputation of Leipsic 
(continuing from June 27 to July 15, 15 19), which the 
vain glorified Dr. Eck had originally arranged with Carl- 
stadt. History awards to Dr. Eck the glory of having 
proved himself the more able disputant, but Luther's 
cause was nevertheless greatly benefited by the discus- 
sion. The arguments of his fiery opponents drove 
Luther onward to a more decided rejection of Romish 
innovations. He was led by degrees to assert boldly 
that the Pope was not by divine right the universal 
Bishop of the Church, to entertain doubts of the infalli- 
bility of councils, and to believe that not all the Hussite 
doctrines were heretical. 

Great men soon came to the support of Luther, and 
among others, Dr. Melancthon, one of the greatest 
scholars of the age. The conflict between Rome and 
Luther now became one of life and death. Dr. Eck 
returned from a journey to Rome, with a Papal bull 
which declared Luther a heretic, and which ordered the 
burning of his w r ritings. Luther, on the other hand, 
systematized his views in three works, all of which 
appeared in 1520, viz.: To His Imperial Majesty and the 
Christian Nobility of the German Nation — On the Baby- 
lonian Captivity of the Church — Sermon on the Freedom of 
a Christian Man. The culmination finally came, when 
(December 10, 1520) Luther publicly burnt the Papal 
bull with the Papal canon law. The Pope succeeded in 
prevailing upon the German emperor and the German 
Diet of Worms ( 1521) to proceed against the great 
heretic ; and when Luther firmly refused to recant, and 
persistently avowed that he could yield to nothing but 
the Holy Scriptures and sound argument, he was placed 
under the ban of the Empire ; but so great was the dis- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 35 

content in Germany with corrupt Rome, that the same 
assembly which condemned Luther for opposing the 
faith of their ancestors, presented one hundred and one 
articles of complaint against the Roman See. As the 
ban of the Empire against Luther unpen' ed his life, he 
was persuaded by his friends to seclude himself in the 
Castle of Wartburg. Placed beyond the turmoil of 
political agitation, he found time to issue several power- 
ful polemical essays against auricular confession, against 
monastic vows, against masses for the dead, and against 
the new idol of the Archbishop of Mentz. After his 
return from Wartburg, Luther gave his chief attention 
to the continuation of his translation of the Bible in Ger- 
man, which w r as completed in 1534. and which was a 
master production for that age of the world, while 
Melancthon, in his celebrated work on theological sci- 
ence, gave to the theological leaders of the new order of 
things a hand-book of doctrine. Then came the Augsburg 
Confession, by which every man was to be measured ; 
and, having adopted this as the theological measure of 
every man, then the Bible became once more a sealed 
book, then a cessation of Bible investigation, and finally 
the imposition of human dogmas and ecclesiastical con- 
traction, in which condition of stagnation the Lutheran 
Reformation has stood ever since, but with an expansion 
of many millions of nominal members, all of whom were 
made members of the Lutheran Church in infancy, with- 
out faith and knowledge, and without liberty of choice. 
At the Diet of Worms, 1521, before the Augsburg Con- 
fession was formulated into a creed, when Luther was 
peremptorily called upon to recant, he replied in Latin: 
"Unless I shall be convinced by the testimonies of the 
Scriptures or by evident reason (for I believe neither 



36 LUTHER AND THE MAN OF SIN, 

Pope nor councils alone, since it is manifest they have 
often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound 
by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is 
held captive by the Word of God ; and as it is neither 
safe nor right to act against conscience, I can not and 
will not retract anything. " He added in German : ' 'Here 
I stand; I can not otherwise : God help vie. Amen." 

Memorable words, if only he had adhered to them. 
But subsequently he took an active part in forming the 
constitution of the Consistories. He was, in conjunc 
tion with other ecclesiastics, the author of the Marburg 
Articles and Schwabach Articles (1529), which furnished 
the basis, and to a large extent the material, both doc- 
trinal and verbal, of the Augsburg Confession, in 1530, 
during its direct preparation and presentation. During 
his conflicts with the powers of Rome, he exhorted his 
friends not to call themselves Lutherans, but Christians, 
and he also told them that he was not writing his tracts 
to bring them to him, but to bring them to the Bible. 
In dissolving Church and State, and in procuring the 
civil liberties of the German people, as well as the liber- 
ties of the people of other States, the Lutheran Refor- 
mation accomplished great and lasting good ; but, 
religiously, as soon as the Augsburg Confession was 
made to occupy the place of the Bible, reformation 
ceased, and there has been but little progress in that 
direction since. Luther never attempted the complete 
restoration of Apostolic Christianity. He never com- 
prehended such a question, which is made the more 
evident by the fact that the Augsburg Confession con- 
tains doctrines and dogmas which are purely of Papal 
origin, notably the dogma of transubstantiation, on 
account of which, as well as on account of other Romish 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 37 

dogmas, Zwingli and other reformers, in Switzerland, 
separated from him, as we shall show in our next article. 
Though the great reformer freed himself from the fetters 
of Papal ecclesiasticism, and severed his connection with 
the despotism of Rome, it is nevertheless a fact that he 
never divested himself entirely of the mysticism of the 
Dark Ages, and never thoroughly rid himself of the 
traditions of Rome. Hence the necessity of succeeding 
reformatory movements, not one of which effected a 
restoration of the apostolic order of things, either in 
doctrine or in practice, as we shall discover in our 
future investigations. We accept the good that preced- 
ing reformers have accomplished, and honor those who 
have rescued the Bible from the grasp of a despotic 
hierarchy, but whatever they taught contrary to God's 
word, we reject What the early reformers left undone, 
we propose to complete ; by which we mean an entire 
restoration of the ancient order of things, in faith and 
practice, in doctrine and discipline. 



ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 



Having in a previous chapter given the origin and a 
brief outline of the Lutheran Reformation, we next pro- 
ceed to present a history of the Augsburg Confession, 
which we derive from the most reliable standard author- 
ities. 

After Charles V. had concluded a peace with France, 
he summoned a German Diet to meet at Augsburg, 
April 8, 1530. The decree of invitation called for aid 
against the Turks, who, in 1529, had besieged Vienna; 
it also promised a discussion of the religious questions 
of the time, and such a settlement of them as both to 
abolish existing abuses and to satisfy the demands of 
the Pope. Elector John, of Saxony, who received this 
decree March 11. directed (March 14) Luther, Jonas, 
Bugenhagen and Melancthon to meet in Torgau, and 
draw up a summary of the most important and necessary 
articles of faith, in support of which the evangelical 
princes and states should combine. These theologians, 
as we shall term them, drew up a profession of their 
faith, the groundwork of which they found in the seven- 
teen articles which had been prepared by Luther for 
the convention at Schwabach, and fifteen other articles, 
which had been drawn up at the theological conference 
at Marburg, and subsequently presented to the Saxon 
Elector John at Torgau The first draft made by the 
four theologians, in seventeen articles, was at once 
published, and elicited a joint reply from Wimpina, 

(38) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS, 39 

Mensing, Redoerfer and Dr. Elgers, which Luther 
immediately answered. The subject of the controversy 
had thus become generally known. Luther, Jonas and 
Melancthon were invited by the Saxon Elector to 
accompany him to Augsburg. However, subsequently 
it was deemed best for Luther's safety to leave him 
behind. Melancthon, soon after his arrival at Augsburg, 
completed the Confession, and gave to it the title 
Apologia. On the nth of May he sent it to Luther, 
who was then at Coburg, and on the 15th of May he 
received from Luther an answer of approval. Several 
alterations were suggested to Melancthon in his confer- 
ence with Jonas, the Saxon Chancellor Briick, the 
conciliatory Bishop Stadion of Augsburg, and the Impe- 
rial Secretary Valdes. To the latter, upon his request, 
seventeen articles were handed by Melancthon, with the 
consent of the Saxon Elector, and he was to have a 
preliminary discussion concerning them with the Papal 
legate Pimpinelli. Upon the opening of the Diet, June 
20, the so-called evangelical theologians who were pres- 
ent — Melancthon, Jonas, Agricola, Brenz, Schnepf and 
others — presented the Confession to the Elector. The 
latter, on June 23, had it signed by the evangelical 
princes and representatives of cities who were present. 
viz.: John, Elector of Saxony; George, Margrave of 
Brandenburg; Ernest, Duke of Lunenburg; Philip, 
Landgrave of Hesse; John Frederick, Duke of Saxe ; 
Francis, Duke of Lunenburg ; Wolfgang, Prince of 
Anhalt, and the magistrates of Nuremberg and Reut- 
linger. 

The Emperor had ordered the Confession to be pre- 
sented to him at the next session, June 24; but when 
the evangelical princes asked for permission to read it, 



40 ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 

their petition was refused, and efforts were made to pre- 
vent the public reading of the document altogether. 
The evangelical princes declared, however, that they 
would not part with the Confession until its reading 
should be allowed. The 25th of the month was then 
fixed as the day of its presentation. In order to exclude 
the people, the little chapel of the Episcopal Palace was 
appointed in the place of the spacious City Hall, where 
the meetings of the Diet were held. In this chapel the 
Protestant princes assembled on the appointed day, 
June 25, 1530. The Saxon Chancellor, Bri'ick, held in 
his hands the Latin, Dr. Christian Bayer the German 
copy. They stepped into the middle of the august 
assembly, and all the Protestant princes rose from their 
seats, but were instantly commanded to sit down. The 
Emperor wished to hear the Latin copy read first, but 
the Elector replied that they were on German ground ; 
whereupon the Emperor consented to the reading of the 
German copy, which was done by Dr. Bayer. The 
reading lasted from four to six o'clock. The reading 
being completed, the Emperor ordered both copies to 
be given to him. The German copy he handed to the 
Archbishop of Mayence, the Latin he carried with him 
to Brussels. Neither of these copies is now extant. 
The Emperor promised to take this '"highly important 
matter" into serious consideration, and make known 
his decision ; in the meanwhile the Confession was not 
to be printed without imperial permission. The Prot- 
estant princes promised to comply with this wish ; but 
when, soon after the reading, an erroneous edition of 
the Confession appeared, it became necessary to have 
both the German and the Latin texts published, which 
work was done through Melancthon. On June 27 the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 4 1 

Confession was given, in the presence of the whole 
assembly, to the Roman Catholic theologians to be 
refuted. The most prominent among them were Eck, 
Faber, Wimpina, Cochlaeus and Dietenberger. Before 
they got through with their work a letter was received 
from Erasmus, who had been asked for his opinion by- 
Cardinal Campegius, recommending caution, and the 
concession of the Protestant demands concerning the 
marriage of the priests, monastic vows and the Lord's 
Supper. 

On July 12 the Roman Catholic "Confutation" was 
presented, which so displeased the Emperor that "of 
two hundred and eighty leaves, only twelve remained 
whole." Anew "Confutation" was therefore prepared 
and read to the Diet, August 3, by the Imperial Secre- 
tary Schweiss. No copy of it was given to the " evan- 
gelical members" of the Diet, and it was not published 
until 1573, by Fabricius. Immediately after the reading 
of the Confutation, the Protestants were commanded to 
conform to it. Negotiations for effecting a compromise 
were begun by both parties, but led to no practical 
result. Negotiations between the Lutherans and the 
Zwinglians were equally fruitless. Zwinglius — angli- 
cized Zwingle — had sent to the Emperor a memorial, 
dated July 4, and Bucer, Capito and Hedio had drawn 
up, in the name of the cities of Strasburg, Constance, 
Memmingen and Lindau, the Coufcssio Tctrapolitana, 
which was presented to the Emperor July 11. Neither 
of these two Confessions was read, and both were 
rejected. 

Melancthon, at the request of the ' ' evangelical 
princes" and cities, prepared an "Apology of the Con- 
fession" in opposition to the Roman Catholic " Confu- 



42 ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 

tation, " which was presented by the Chancellor Bruck, 
September 22, to the Emperor, who refused to receive 
it Subsequently Melancthon received a copy of the 
"Confutation," which led to many alterations in the 
first draft of the Apology. It was then published in 
Latin, and in a German translation by Jonas (Witten- 
berg, 1531)- A controversy subsequently arose, in 
consequence of which Melancthon, after 1540, made 
considerable alterations in the original Augsburg Con- 
fession, altering, especially in Article X., the statement 
of the doctrine of the Lord's Supper in favor of the 
view of the Reformers. Melancthon, who had already 
been charged with ' ' crypto-Calvinism " (concealed Cal- 
vinism), was severely attacked on account of these 
alterations; yet the "Confcssio Variata" remained in 
the ascendency until 1580, when the Coufcssio Invariata 
was put into the "Concordfenbuch" in its place, and thus 
the unaltered Confession has come to be generally 
regarded as the standard of the Lutheran churches. It 
is but just to say, however, that the altered Confession 
has not ceased to find advocates, and several branches 
of the Lutheran Church have even abrogated the author- 
itative character of the Confession, and do not demand 
from their clergy a belief in all its doctrines. 

And this is how the Augsburg Confession struggled 
into existence. The following table of the contents of 
the Confession and of the Apology will give the reader 
an idea of a religious system of things that, at this time, 
probably wields an influence, directly and indirectly, 
over forty million people : 

Part I (1) acknowledges four ecumenical councils ; (2) declares 
original sin to consist wholly in concupiscence ; (3) contains the sub- 
stance of the Apostles' Creed ; (4) declares that justification is the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 43 

effect of faith, exclusive of good works ; (5) declares the word of God 
and the sacraments to be the means of conveying the Holy Spirit, but 
never without faith ; (()) that faith must produce good works purely in 
obedience to God, and not in order to the meriting justification; (7) 
the rue Church consists of the godly only ; (8) allows the validity of 
the sacraments, though administered by the evil one ; (9) declares the 
necessity of infant baptism; (10) declares the real presence in the 
Eucharist continued with the elements only during the period of 
receiving ; (11) declares absolution to be necessary, but not so particu- 
lar confession ; (12) declares against the Anabaptists; (13) requires 
actual faith in all who receive the sacraments ; (14) forbids to teach in 
the Church, or to administer the sacraments, without being lawfully 
called ; (15) orders the observance of the holy days and ceremonies of 
the Church ; (16) of civil matters and marriage ; (17) of the resurrec- 
tion, last judgment, heaven and hell ; (18) of free will ; (19) that God 
is not the author of sin ; (20) that good works are not altogether 
unprofitable ; (21) forbids the invocation of saints. 

Part II (1) enjoins communion in both kinds, and forbids the pro- 
cession of the holy sacrament ; (2) condemns the law of celibacy of 
priests; (3) condemns private masses, and enjoins that some of the 
congregation shall communicate with' the priest ; (4) against the neces- 
sity of auricular confession ; (5) against tradition and human ceremo- 
nies ; (6) condemns monastic vows; (7) discriminates between civil and 
religious power, and declares the power of the Church to consist only 
in preaching and administering the sacraments. 

These are briefly the facts which show the origin, 
gestation and birth of the Augsburg Confession. The 
intelligent Bible reader can easily tell how much of this 
theological medley is Papal, how much Protestant, how 
much tradition, how much human speculation, and how 
much apostolic teaching. To say nothing of the sinful- 
ness of making the creed, many of its doctrines are pos- 
itive contradictions of the word of God, and wholly 
subversive of Bible teaching. The reader will have 
noticed, in the history of the Confession just given, 
that civil rulers had about as much to do in producing 
the creed as the Reformers themselves. The formation 



44 ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 

of this Augsburg Confession cut off all further investi- 
gation of the Scriptures, and forever stereotyped the 
faith of its adherents. By the doctrines of this Confes- 
sion it will be seen that Luther remained partly a 
Roman Catholic as long as he lived, and it was because 
of this fact that Zwingle, as we shall see further on, 
with other reformers in Switzerland, separated from 
Luther, and framed another Confession in harmony 
with their belief. Creedism, as the reader will have 
perceived, began at the very point where reformation 
ceased. And hence as long as creeds exist, and as long 
as men prefer creeds in lieu of the word of God, there 
can be no Christian union upon the basis of the Scrip- 
tures, so far as creed-lovers are concerned. 



REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 



Ulrich Zwingle was the founder of Protestantism in 
Switzerland. He was a man of fine education and of 
extensive learning. He was educated in the Roman 
Catholic Church. He possessed a bright intellect, was 
a great lover of literature, was early in life distinguished 
for his love of truth, and devoted himself intensely to 
an investigation of the Scriptures. Like Luther, wit- 
nessing the corruptions of the clergy, and discovering 
dogmas and traditions not found in the Word of God, 
such as the worship of the Virgin Mary and the hideous 
doctrine of indulgences, he attempted a work of reform 
in the bosom of the Church. He was soon charged 
with preaching heresy, which the Papal powers regarded 
as subversive of the established order of things. In a 
conference held at Zurich, called at his own request, 
January 29, 1523, in the presence of an assembly of 
more than six hundred men, he defended sixty-seven 
propositions, which were leveled against the system of 
Romanism. In his defense against the charge of heresy, 
he substituted the authority of the gospel for the author- 
ity of the Church ; he declared the Church to be the 
communion of the faithful, who have no head but 
Christ ; he maintained that salvation is through faith in 
Christ as the only priest and intercessor ; he rejected the 
Papacy and the mass, the invocation of saints, justifica- 
tion by works, fasts, festivals, pilgrimages, monastic 
orders and the priesthood, auricular confession, absolu- 

(45) 



4-6 REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 

tion, indulgences, penances, purgatory, and indeed all 
the characteristic peculiarities of the Romish Church. 
In another disputation, before a much larger assembly, 
on the 26th of October following, he obtained a decree 
of the Council against the use of images and the sacrifice 
of the mass. 

By these statements it will be seen that Zwingle, as a 
clear-headed reformer, and as one capable of making- 
clean-cut distinctions between the teaching of the Bible 
and the traditions of Rome, was in advance of Luther. 
In 1525 he published his chief work, entitled a "Com- 
mentary on True and False Religion," and also a treat- 
ise on original sin, The tenets he published are 
substantially the same as those adopted by the Protes- 
tant churches generally. In his philosophy he was a 
predestinnrian of an extreme type, transcending both 
Augustine and Calvin. He did not confine the illumi- 
nation of the Spirit within the circle of revealed religion, 
nor do his adherents of the present age, or to those who 
receive the word of God and the ' sacraments." He 
held that the virtues of heathen sages and heroes are 
due to the presence of divine grace, and asserted, for 
example, that Socrates was more pious and holy than 
all Dominicans and Franciscans. "He had busied 
himself," says Neander, "with the study of antiquity, 
for which he had a predilection, and had not the right 
criterion for distinguishing the ethical standing-point of 
Christianity from that of the ancients " From Zurich 
the Reformation spread, and in a short time Zwingle 
found in CEcolampadius as great a counselor and leader 
as Luther had found in the distinguished and scholarly 
Melancthon. The authority of the Papal system never 
had the same deep-set hold upon Zwingle as it had upon 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 47 

Luther ; a question, however, which is not necessary to 
discuss here, as we are only aiming to present a histori- 
cal connection of things and events. When Luther was 
put under the ban of the Church, Zwingle, as we learn 
from Ranke, the German historian, was still the recipi- 
ent of a pension from the Pope. When Luther at the 
Diet of Worms, in the face of Papal princes and the 
legates of Rome, refused to submit to the authority of 
the Pope, Zwingle had not yet been seriously molested. 
As late as 1523 he received a complimentary letter from 
Pope Adrian VI. ~ facts which ' go to show that the 
reformations effected in the sixteenth century were only 
partial, and of course incomplete, and a fact which we 
desire our contemporaries to understand, in view of the 
work in which we are engaged. 

Finally there broke out the great controversy on the 
dogma of transubstantiation between the Lutheran and 
Swiss reformers. Luther did not obtain this dogma 
from the apostolic record, but from theologians of the 
Latin Church — from Radbert, of the ninth century, from 
the leading schoolmen of the thirteenth century, which 
was made an article of faith by the fourth Lateran Coun- 
cil, in 121 5, under Innocent III. The Reformers, as a 
class, with one consent, denied this dogma, "together 
with the associated doctrine of the sacrificial character 
of the Eucharist." But Luther stoutly affirmed the- 
actual corporate presence of the glorified body and 
blood of Christ, in connection with the bread and wine, 
so that the body and blood, in some mysterious way, 
are received by the communicant, whether he be a 
believer or an unbeliever. Luther did not hold that the 
heavenly body of Christ, which is offered and received 
in the "sacrament," occupies space ; yet it is received 



4$ REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND. 

by all who partake of the bread and wine — not a portion 
of the body, but the entire Christ by each communicant. 
It is received, in some proper sense, with the mouth. 
We have quoted from De Wette, with the German 
before us. Zwingle denied that the body of Christ is 
present, in any sense, in the "sacrament," but, with his 
followers, he was more and more disposed to attach 
importance to a spiritual presence in the institution. 
This belief Calvin emphasized, and added the positive 
assertion of a direct influence upon the believing com- 
municant, which fl >w's from Christ through the medium 
or instrumentality of his human nature. ,w The Word 
and the Sacraments Luther had made the criteria of the 
Church. On upholding them in their just place, every- 
thing that distinguished his reform from enthusiasm or 
rationalism depended. He had never thought of for- 
saking the dogmatic system of Latin Christianity in its 
earlier and purer days, and he looked with alarm on 
what struck him as a rationalistic innovation " At the 
Conference of Marburg, in .529, which was called with 
a view of reconciling the disaffected parties, when the 
theologians sat by a table, the Saxons on one side and 
Swiss on the opposite side, Luther wrote upon the table 
with chalk his text: "Hoc est menm corpus" (this is my 
body), and resolutely refused to budge an iota from the 
literal sense. 



ORIGIN OF THE HEIDELBERG CONFESSION. 



As a result of the controversy between the Lutheran 
reformers and the Swiss reformers, we have the Heidel- 
berg Catechism, the property of the Reformed Church. 
Its name is derived from the city in which it was com- 
piled and first printed. It is also sometimes styled the 
Palatinate Catechism, from the territory (the Palatinate) 
of the Prince (Frederick III.) under whose auspices it 
was prepared. Soon after the introduction of Protes- 
tantism into the Palatinate, in 1546, the controversy 
between Lutherans and Calvinists broke out, and f^r 
years, especially under the Elector Otto Heinrich (155 6— 
59), it raged with great violence in Heidelberg. Fred- 
erick III., who came into power in 1559, adopted the 
Calvinistic view of the Lord's Supper, and favored that 
side of the question with all his princely power. He 
reorganized the Sapienz College (founded by his prede- 
cessor) as a theological school, and placed at its head 
(1562) Zacharias Ursinus, a pupil and friend of Melanc- 
thon, who had adopted the Reformed opinions. In 
order to put an end to religious disputes in his domin- 
ions, he determined to put forth a Catechism, a Con- 
fession of Faith, and laid the responsibility of preparing 
it upon Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, for a time profes- 
sor in the University of Heidelberg, then court-preacher 
to Frederick III. They made use of the catechetical 
literature then in existence, especially of the catechisms 
of Calvin and John a Lasco. Each prepared sketches 
5 (49) 



50 ORIGIN OF THE HEIDELBERG CONFESSION. 

or drafts, and "the final preparation was the work of 
both these theologians, with the constant co-operation 
of Frederick III. Ursinus has always been regarded as 
the chief author, as he was afterward the principal 
defender and interpreter of the Catechism ; still, it 
would appear that the nervous German style, the divi- 
sion into three parts (as distinguished from the five parts 
in the Catechism of Calvin, and the previous draft of 
Ursinus), and the genial warmth and unction of the 
whole work, are chief!}' due to Olevianus." (Schaff, in 
Am. Prcs. Rev., July, 1863, p. 379.) Philip Schaff, of 
New York, is the acknowledged leader of the Reformed 
Church in America. When the Catechism was com- 
pleted, Frederick laid it before a synod of the superin- 
tendents of the Palatinate, December, 1562, and after a 
careful examination it was duly approved. Dr. Schaff 
observes, in the same Review from which we have 
already quoted, that "the Catechism is a true expres- 
sion of the convictions of its authors, but it communi- 
cates only so much of these as is in harmony with the 
public faith of the Church, and observes a certain reti- 
cence or reservation and moderation on such doctrines 
(as the tiuofold predestination), which belong rather to 
scientific theology and private conviction than to a pub- 
lic church confession and the instruction of youth." 

The Heidelberg Catechism contains substantially the 
same tenets, dogmas, traditions, speculations and private 
opinions that are found in all Protestant creeds, except 
in governmental affairs. In common with all creeds, 
whether Romanist or Protestant, it teaches infant bap- 
tism and sprinkling. The body of people which it 
represents is called the Reformed Church, and this 
Reformed Church is regarded by its theologians and 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 5 I 

admirers as a decided improvement upon the Lutheran 
Church ; that is to say, there is not as much Romanism 
in the Heidelberg Catechism as there is in the Augs- 
burg Confession. The theologians and princes of Ger- 
many and Switzerland began reformation with the Bible, 
and ended their work by the substitution of creeds, 
confessions of faith, symbols of faith, church standards, 
etc. Taking the Bible as their guide, they beat a 
retreat from the mystic realms of Papal Babylon, but 
had not gone far until the leaders commanded a halt, 
when they went to work, while still under the potent 
influence of Rome, and formulated Confessions of Faith; 
and, wedded to these human inventions, as their sup- 
porters now are, they still dwell within the confines of 
old Babylon. If not ecclesiastically under the power of 
the " Mother Church," they are religiously and spirit- 
ually of the same affinities. None of these creeds, 
whether Catholic or Protestant, tells a man how to 
become a Christian. They tell a man how he may 
become a Catholic, a Lutheran, a Reformer, an Episco- 
palian, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Baptist, perchance. 
There is not a Confession of Faith in existence that ever 
saved a soul. As human compositions, one is just as 
full of light and knowledge as another, and just as effica- 
cious in the salvation of the soul. They all originated 
in the councils of men ; they were digested in the heat 
of human passions ; they were concocted and planned by 
envious and rival theologians ; they became the symbols 
— the insignia — of rival princes; they have always 
engendered strife, hatred, malice, bigotry, intolerance 
and persecution, and will continue to do so until the 
end of time. There is no Christian love in them ; there 
is nothing in them that will unite the people of God 



52 ORIGIN OF THE HEIDELBERG CONFESSION. 

and make them one people. The mind of God is not 
found in them, and the spirit of Christ does not breathe 
through them. They confuse the human mind ; they 
divide the counsels of Christians ; they paralyze the 
power of truth; they make a fable of the gospel ; they 
mock the prayers of the Savior ; they make void the 
law of God ; they infuse the spirit of sectarianism ; they 
cramp the human intellect ; they place insuperable bar- 
riers between tnose seeking love and unity upon the 
basis of the Bible. 

In view of these facts, and many more yet to be pro- 
duced, let our brethren understand that our mission is 
not yet ended, but, on the contrary, only fairly begun. 
We have no human creed to defend. The Bible, and 
the Bible only, is our rule of faith and practice. The 
word of God only is the man of our counsel. All creeds 
must be crushed under the weight of divine authority. 
"The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" must 
destroy all sectism. There must be but one fold and 
one Shepherd We are set for the defense of the gospel 
of the Son of God, and we propose to walk in the old 
paths. W r e propose the restoration of the apostolic 
order of things. To this work we consecr ite our life's 
blood. • Upon this altar we lay our all. We trust that 
all those who have been called into this marvelous light 
will stand firm, and work and contend for the faith, and 
show themselves men in the highest sense of the word, 
and never, never, yield an iota of the truth. 



JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM 



It is not our purpose, nor is it necessary to the end 
we have in view, to trace the Lutheran Reformation as 
it spread all through the Scandinavian kingdom, pene- 
trated the Slavonic nations, and took Hungary captive. 
We shall next have something to say about John Calvin 
and his theology. 

In French Switzerland, the reformatory movement 
began in 1526, in the French parts of the cantons Berne 
and Biel, where the principles of reform were preached 
by William Farel, a native of France. In 1530 he 
established the Reformation in Neufchatel. A begin- 
ning was made in Geneva as early as 1528; in 1534, 
after a religious conference held at the suggestion of the 
people of Berne, in which Farel defended the Reforma- 
tion, public worship was granted to those who belonged 
to the Reformed branch ; rapid progress was then made 
through the zeal of Farel, Froment and Viret ; and in 
1535, after another disputation, the Papacy was abol- 
ished by the Council, and the doctrines of the Reforma- 
tion adopted. In 1536 John Calvin arrived in Geneva, 
and was induced by Farel to remain in the city and to 
aid him in his struggle against a party of free-thinkers 
who called themselves Spirituals. In October of the 
same year he took part with Farel and Viret in a relig 
ious disputation held at Lausanne, which resulted in 
gaining over the Pays-de-Vaud to the cause of the 
Reformation. In 1538 both Farel and Calvin were 

(53) 



54 JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM. 

banished by the Council, which had taken offense at the 
very strict church discipline introduced by the reform- 
ers. Soon, however, the friends of the Reformation 
regained the ascendency, and Calvin was recalled in 
I 541, while Farel remained in Neufchatel. For several 
years Calvin was put under the necessity of sustaining a 
desperate struggle against his opponents, but in 1555 
they were finally subdued in an insurrection incited by 
one Ami Perrin From that time forward the reforma- 
torv ideas of Calvin were carried through in both Church 
and State with a consistency as rigid as iron, and 
Geneva became a center whence reformatory influences 
spread to the remotest p^rts of Europe. By an exten 
sive correspondence and numerous theological theses, 
he exerted a powerful personal influence upon a certain 
class of minds far beyond the boundaries of Switzerland 
The theological academy of Geneva, founded in 1588, 
supplied the churches of many foreign countries, espe- 
cially France, with preachers trained in the spirit of 
Calvin. When Calvin died, in 1564, the continuation 
of his work devolved upon the learned Theodore Beza. 
Calvin disagreed in many points with Zwingle, whose 
views gradually lost ground as those of Calvin advanced. 
The Second Helvetic Confession, the most important 
among the symbolical books of the Reformed Church, 
which was compiled by Bullinger in Zurich, published 
in 1566, and recognized in all Reiormed countries, com- 
pleted, we are told, the superiority of Calvin's reforms 
tory notions over those of Zwingle. 

Calvin was only eight years old when Luther posted 
his famous theses upon the door of the Cathedral in 
Wittenberg He was born at Noyon, in Picardy, on 
the 10th of July, 1509. He was well provided for by 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 55 

families of nobility, who assisted him in obtaining a 
splendid education in the best colleges of Paris. His 
physical constitution was not strong, but early in life he 
developed extraordinary intellectual power. He was 
raised in affluence, and was never subjected to penury 
and rough discipline, as were the German and Swiss 
reformers. In college he surpassed his companions in 
severe mental application, and in a natural aptitude to 
learn. He spent most of his time by himself, and from 
his serious and severe turn of mind, he was nicknamed 
by his companions, "The Accusative Case." At the 
age of eighteen he. received the tonsure, and preached 
occasionally, but had not taken orders, as his father, 
changing his plan, concluded to qualify him for the pro- 
fession of a jurist. He studied under the most cele- 
brated teachers. Before long, however, his attention 
was directed to the study of the Scriptures through the 
influence of Protestant relatives. Little is known of his 
public career until about 1532, soon after which he gives 
an account of his " sudden conversion." " Calvin had 
hesitated about becoming a Protestant, out of reverence 
for the Church. But he so modified his conception of 
the Church as to perceive that the change did not 
involve a renunciation of it. Membership in the true 
Church was consistent with renouncing the rule of the 
Roman Catholic prelacy : for the Church, in its essence 
invisible, exists in a true form wherever the gospel is 
faithfully preached and the sacraments administered 
conformably to the directions of Christ." So says 
George P. Fisher, D.D., in his History of the Reforma- 
tion, pp. 195-6. 

Calvin, by his great learning, by the rare acuteness 
of his intellect, and by his extensive acquaintance with 



56 JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM. 



the contents of the Bible, became an acknowledged 

o 

leader of the Protestant party in France. Speaking of 
Calvin's characteristics as a writer and a man, Professor 
Fisher says : ''His direct influence was predominantly 
and almost exclusively upon the higher classes of soci- 
ety. He and his system acted powerfully upon the 
people, but indirectly through the agency of others. 
He was a patrician in his temperament. By his early 
associations, and as an effect of his culture, he acquired 
a certain refinement and decided affinities for the class 
elevated by birth or education. This was one of his 
points of dissimilarity to Luther; he was not fitted, like 
the German reformer, to come home to the ' business 
and bosoms' of common men. He had not the popular 
eloquence of Luther, nor had he the genius that left its 
impress on the words and works of the Saxon reformer ; 
but he was a more exact and finished scholar than 
Luther." Melancthon greeted Calvin as "the theolo- 
gian," and by the enemies of Protestantism his work was 
styled "the Koran of the heretics." A contemporary 
writer thus spoke of him : 

" Some think on Calvin heaven's own mantle fell, 
While others deemed him an instrument of hell." 

Professedly he adopted the Bible as the sole standard 
of doctrine, while at the same time he made his peculiar 
speculation of predestination to overshadow the whole 
Bible, and to render nugatory the revealed plan of sal- 
vation. While his "Institutes" show him to be a very 
acute critic and a profound exegetical writer, yet at the 
same time it is apparent that by his theocratic interpre- 
tations of Scripture he renders the gospel of Christ a 
myth. While he scouts the doctrine that the truth of 
the Bible rests on the authority of the Church, and 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 57 

holds that the divine authority of the Bible can be estab- 
lished by reason, he at the same time maintains that a 
spiritual insight of gospel truth is imparted directly by 
the Holy Spirit. While he professes little esteem for 
the fathers of the Church, and while he stigmatizes the 
domas and rites of the Papacy as the ''impious inven- 
tions of men," without warrant from the Word of God, 
yet at the same time, unlike the other reformers, he 
frequently pays deference to the Church. Believing in 
a Church Invisible, composed of true believers, and also 
believing in the Church Visible, the criteria of which are 
the proper administration of the Sacraments and the 
teaching of the Word", and theoretically demanding pos- 
itive submission to the model of the New Testament, he 
at the same time fails to identify the Apostolic Church 
in its complete restoration and purity. The smell of the 
Papacy tinges much of his writings. Professor Fisher 
thus summarizes the peculiar theological tenets of 
Calvin : 

Predestination to him is the correlate of human dependence ; the 
counterpart of the doctrine of grace ; the antithesis to salvation by- 
merit ; the implied consequences of man's complete bondage to sin. 
In election, it is involved that man's salvation is not his own work, 
but, wholly, the work of the grace of God; and in election, also, there 
is laid a sure foundation for the believer's security under all the 
assaults of temptation. It is practical interest which Calvin is sedu- 
lous to guard ; he clings to the doctrine for what he considers its relig- 
ious value ; and it is no more than justice to him to remember that he 
habitually styles the tenet, which proved to be so obnoxious, an 
unfathomable mystery, an abyss into which no mortal mind can 
descend. And, whether consistently or not, there is the most earnest 
assertion of the moral and responsible nature of man. Augustine held 
that in the fall of Adam, the entire race was involved in a common 
act and a common catastrophe. The will is not destroyed ; it is still 
free to sin, but is utterly disabled as regards holiness. Out of the 
mass of mankind, all of whom are alike guilty, God chooses a part to 



58 JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM. 

he the recipients of his mercy, whom he purifies by an irresistible 
influence, but leaves the rest to suffer the penalty which they have 
justly brought upon themselves. In the •'Institutes," Calvin does 
what Luther had done in his book against Erasmus ; he makes the Fall 
itself, the primal transgression, the object of an efficient decree. In 
this particular he goes beyond Augustine, and apparently affords a 
sanction to the extreme, or supralapsarian type of theology, which 
afterward found numerous defenders — which traces sin to the direct 
agency of God, and even founds the distinction of right and wrong 
ultimately on his omnipotent will (Inst. III., xxiii., 6, seq.) But when 
Calvin was called upon to define his doctrine more carefully, as in the 
Consensus Genevensis, he confines himself to the assertion of a permissive 
decree — a volitive permission — in the case of the first sin. In other 
words, he does not overstep the Augustinian position. He explicitly 
avers that every decree of the Almighty springs from reasons which, 
though hidden from us, are good and sufficient ; that is to say, he 
founds will upon right, and not right upon will. He differs, however, 
both from Augustine and Luther, in affirming that none who are once 
converted fall from a state of grace, the number of believers being 
coextensive with the number of the elect. 

Calvin lives in history as a scholar and a theologian, 
but not as a reformer. He rendered valuable service as 
an interpreter and expounder of Scriptures, but, like 
Luther, Zwingle and Knox, he failed to restore the 
primitive apostolic order of things. His speculations, 
theologically known as Predestination, Total Hereditary 
Depravity, Particular Election, Reprobation, Final Per- 
severance and the Eternal Decrees, have only served 
the purpose of dividing the people of God instead of 
uniting them — have only perplexed and confused the 
human mind instead of making plain the simplicity of 
the gospel. It is said of Calvin by his biographers, that 
at times he was so carried away by gusts of passion, 
that he lost all self-control. He had tried in vain, he 
says, to " tame the wild beast of his anger" ; and on his 
death-bed he asked pardon of the Senate of Geneva for 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 59 

outbursts of passion, while at the same time he thanked 
them for their forbearance. 

Calvin, by instinct and choice, was better fitted for 
the rigid theocracy of Moses than for the liberty of the 
gospel. He had a stronger inclination toward Mosaic 
legislation than toward a system of divine truth which 
makes the individual free. He ruled with a rod of iron 
in the city of Geneva, where he directed civil as well as 
ecclesiastical affairs. "In 1568, under the stern code 
which was established under the auspices of Calvin, a 
child was beheaded for striking its father and mother. 
A child sixteen years old, for attempting to strike its 
mother, was sentenced to death ; but, on account of its 
youth, the sentence was commuted, and having been 
publicly whipped, with a cord about its neck, it was 
banished from the city. In 1565 a woman was chastised 
with rods for singing songs to the melody of the Psalms. " 
And other inflictions are recorded too numerous to 
mention. The expulsion of Castellio from Geneva, a 
highly cultivated scholar whom Calvin had brought from 
Strasburg, to take charge of the Geneva school — an 
expulsion caused by the influence of Calvin himself — 
and the death of Servetus, instigated by Calvin, and 
executed by those directly under his influence, because 
Servetus wrote a book entitled " Errors of the Trinity," 
which contradicted the opinions of Calvin — these heart- 
less acts indicate the temper of Calvin's spirit, these 
show the character of his cold intellect, these demon- 
strate the rigidity and inflexibility of his will power. 
The powerful intellect of such a man may excite the 
admiration of cold-hearted theologians, and overawe the 
ignorant and superstitious with amazement, but such a 
disposition can never command the love and affection 



60 JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM. 

of the "common people." In our opinion, there is 
nothing in Calvinism but the defeat of Christianity — 
there is nothing in it on which a sinful and helpless 
world can lean for support. There is not a gleam of 
hope in it. It is a death-dealing system. 



ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 



We headed this series of articles Reformatory Move- 
ments. It may become evident before we conclude, that 
the series should have been designated A History of the 
Protestant Denominations y for the reason that many of 
them do not contain the elements of religious reforma- 
tion at all. 

The principles of the Lutheran Reformation swept 
across the English Channel, and seized the people of the 
British Empire. But, as might have been expected, the 
heresies of Luther and of Wickliffe met with intense 
and malicious opposition from the start. King Henry 
VIII., at the outbreak of the politico-religious revolu- 
tion, became a conspicuous opponent of Luther, as well 
as a champion of the Papal cause. For writing a 
polemical book against Luther upon the Seven Sac- 
raments, Leo X. conferred upon the King the title 
"Defender of the Faith" {Defensor Fidei). This took 
place in 1521. Henry also addressed a letter to the 
Emperor of Germany, in which he demanded the extir- 
pation of the heretics. But the doctrines of Luther 
found ardent adherents even at the English universities, 
and an English translation of the Bible, by Frith and 
Tyndale, members of the University of Cambridge, 
produced a decisive and salutary effect. It was not 
long, however, until King Henry had a quarrel with the 
Pope, because the latter refused to annul Henry's mar- 
riage with Catharine of Aragon, the niece of the 

(61) 



62 ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

Emperor Charles V. Henry, who represented that his 
marriage with Catharine, his brother's widow, was Open 
to objections, laid the matter, by advice of Thomas 
Cranmer, before the universities of Europe, "not ab- 
staining, however, from the use of bribery abroad and 
of menaces at home;" but when replies came back 
declaring the marriage with a brother's wife null and 
void, the King separated from Catharine, married Anne 
Boleyn, and, as a consequence, fell under the Papal ban. 

Through the conniving of Henry, the English Parlia- 
ment was induced to sunder the connection between 
England and Rome, and to recognize the King as head 
of the new Church. It became the fixed purpose of 
Henry to destroy, if possible, the influence of the Pope 
over the Church of England, with a desire at the same 
time to preserve its Catholic character. As a revenge 
upon the Pope, he subjected the cloisters to a searching 
investigation in 1535, and in the following year he 
totally abolished them. In 1538 the Bible was diffused 
in the mother tongue as the only source of doctrine; 
" but the statute of 1539 imposed distinct limits upon 
the. Reformation, and, in particular, confirmed transub- 
stantiation, priestly celibacy, masses for the dead, and 
auricular confession." After the Pope's authority was 
abolished in England, Parliament passed the Act of 
Supremacy, "That the King, our sovereign lord, his 
heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be 
taken, accepted, and reputed the only, supreme head in 
earth of the Church of England, called the Anglicana 
Ecclesia." 

And this was the origin of the Episcopal Church ! 
Up to this memorable event the Pope of Rome was 
recognized as head of the Church of England; now 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 63 

Henry VIII. becomes head of the Church, and the 
ecclesiastical are brought into subjection to the civil 
powers. Many of those who refused to submit to the 
new order of things in England, were executed, and 
their goods confiscated by the loyal but servile minions 
of the English king. It is evident that while Henry 
was a Protestant in form, he was a Romanist in heart. 
A powerful party, headed by Thomas Cranmer, after- 
ward Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas Cromwell, 
royal vicar-general in ecclesiastical affairs, exerted a 
silent influence toward the Reformed churches of Con- 
tinental Europe. They met with little success during 
the reign of Henry, but gained a temporary ascendency 
in the regency which ruled England during the minority 
of Edward VI. Certain parties, including Peter Martyr, 
Bucer and Fagius, were invited to England to aid Cran- 
mer in establishing the Reformation. The basis was 
laid in the Book of Homilies (1547), the new English 
Liturgy (the Book of Common Prayer, 1548), and the 
Forty-two Articles, 1552; but the labors of Cranmer 
were interrupted by the death of Edward VI., in 1553. 
His successor, Queen Mary, the daughter of Henry and 
Catharine of Aragon, was, as the intelligent reader 
knows, a devoted partisan of the Church of Rome, 
during whose bloody reign Cranmer and from three to 
four hundred other persons were executed on account 
of their religious views. A Papal nuncio appeared in 
England, and an obsequious Parliament sanctioned the 
reunion with Rome; but the affections of the people 
were not regained, and the early death of Mary, in 
1558, put an end to the official restoration of the Papal 
Church. Queen Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry and 
Anne Boleyn, whose birth, in consequence of the Papal 



64 ORIGIN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

decision, was regarded by the Roman Catholics as ille- 
gitimate, resumed the work of her father, and completed 
the English Reformation, as a work distinct both from 
the Church of Rome and the Reformation of Germany 
and Switzerland. 



THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 



The Book of Common Prayer, which had been 
adopted under Edward VI., was so changed as to be 
less offensive to the Romish party ; and by the Act of 
Uniformity, June, 1559, ^ was made binding on all the 
churches of the kingdom. Most of the subjects of the 
Pope conformed. The Confession of Faith, which had 
been formulated under Edward, in forty-two articles, 
was reduced to thirty-nine articles, and in this form it 
was adopted by a convocation of the clergy, at London, 
in 1562, and by Parliament made, in 1 57 1 , the rule of 
faith for all the clergy of the realm. According to the 
Thirty-nine Articles, the Scriptures contain, so they tell 
us, everything necessary to salvation. We are further 
informed that justification is through faith alone, which 
article, we presume, was intended as an offset to the 
Romish doctrine of justification by works alone, or the 
doctrine of indulgences ; but works acceptable to God 
are the necessary fruit of this faith. Of course, neither 
Christ nor his apostles was consulted, when the English 
Parliament declared that supreme power over the 
Church is vested in the English crown, though limited 
by the statutes. Bishops continued to be the highest 
ecclesiastical officers and the first barons of the realm, 
which, it must be confessed, does not resemble the sim- 
plicity of the primitive order. Subscription to the 
Articles was made binding on the clergy ; freedom of 
conscience was granted to the laity. The adoption of 
6 (65) 



66 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 

the Thirty-nine Articles completed, substantially, the 
Constitution of the Episcopal Church of England. Some 
parts of the Church government and the Liturgy, espe- 
cially the retaining of sacerdotal vestments, gave great 
offense to a number of zealous people, of a radical turn 
of mind, who had suffered persecution during the reign 
of Mary, and, while exiles, had become strongly attached 
to the extreme dogmas of Calvinism. They demanded 
a greater purity of the Church (hence the origin of the 
term "Puritans"), a simple, spiritual form of worship, 
a strict church discipline, and a Presbyterian form of 
government. The Act of Uniformity, in 1559, threat- 
ened all Non-conformists with fines and imprisonment, 
and their ministers with deposition and banishment. 
When the provisions of the Act began to be enforced, 
a number of the Non-conformist ministers formed sepa- 
rate congregations in connection with presbyteries, 
subsequent to 1572, and a considerable portion of the 
ministers and laity of the Established Church sympa- 
thized with them. The rupture between the parties 
was widened when, in 1592, by an act of Parliament it 
was decreed that all who obstinately refused to attend 
public worship, or induced others to do so, should be 
imprisoned and submit, or after three months be ban- 
ished ; and again, in 1595, when the Presbyterians 
applied the Mosaic Sabbath laws to the Lord's-day, and 
when Calvin's doctrines respecting Predestination excited 
bitter and lengthy disputes. ■ 

Thus far, by the aid of history, we have learned that 
Henry VHP. a very dissolute king, was constituted 
head of the English Church, or the P^piscopal Church, 
called so by the fact that all church government is 
lodged in a bench of lordly bishops, that the Book of 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 6j 

Prayer was adopted, which was patterned after the 
Roman Catholic Missal, and that the Thirty-nine Arti- 
cles, which it is not necessary to insert here, became 
the Creed of the English Church. On the general 
character of the Anglican or English Church, George P. 
Fisher, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale Col- 
lege, has this to say : 

As bead of the Church, the King could make and deprive bishops, 
as he could appoint and degrade all other officers in the kingdom. 
The Episcopal polity was retained, partly because the bishops gener- 
ally fell in with the proceedings of Henry VIII. and Edward for the 
reform of the Church, and on account of the compact organization of 
the Monarchy, in consequence of which the nation acted as one body. 
But in the first age of the Reformation, and until the rise of Puritan- 
ism as a distinct party, there was little controversy among Protestants 
in relation to Episcopacy. Not only was Melancthon willing to allow 
bishops with a jure humano authority, but Luther and Calvin were also 
of the same mind. The Episcopal Constitution of the English Church 
for a long period put no barrier in the way of the most free and fra- 
ternal relations between that body and the Protestant churches on the 
Continent. As we have seen, Cranmer placed foreign divines in very 
responsible places in the English Church. Ministers who had received 
Presbyterian ordination were admitted to take charge of English par- 
ishes without a question as to the validity of their orders. — History of 
the Reformation, pp. 332-3. 

"The feature,'' says Professor Fisher, "that distin- 
guished the English Church from the Reformed Churches 
on the Continent, was the retention in its polity and 
worship of so much that had belonged to the Catholic 
system." And the Episcopal Church is to this day 
essentially Catholic. The English Church owes its exist- 
ence more to a stroke of political policy (coup d'etat) 
than to a deep conviction of the supremacy of truth. 
The supremacy of the King himself was deemed of 
vastly more importance than the supremacy of apostolic 
truth. In all these controversies the Church of Christ, 



68 THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES. 

as founded by the apostles, was not once thoroughly 
and distinctively identified. No plan of salvation is 
denned. The Bible is translated, which, for the times, 
was a memorable event, and one fraught with far-reach- 
ing consequences. The translation of the Bible into the 
vernacular of the people was the harbinger of both the 
civil and religious liberty of modern times. Great rev- 
olutionary principles were abstracted from the Bible, 
and many proof-texts from the Bible furnished matter 
for divisive and contradictory creeds, but the Bible 
itself as an infallible guide, and as containing the divine 
system of salvation, was laid upon the shelf as a useless 
piece of lumber. The controversialists of that period 
scarcely ever made an appeal to the Word of God in 
their efforts to sustain their respective dogmas and the- 
ories. While they all acknowledged the supremacy of 
the Scriptures, and in a general way deferred to them, 
yet the facts go to show that the truth of the Bible was 
nullified and the power of the gospel paralyzed by 
savage and ceaseless controversies — by controversies 
between the defenders of the Augsburg Confession and 
the advocates of the Heidelberg Catechism — by polem- 
ical struggles between Luther and Zwingle — by angry 
disputes between the King of England and the Pope of 
Rome, and by repeated wrangles, of opposing Councils. 
Dogmas were popularized, creeds were stereotyped, 
human opinions were consecrated, metaphysical specula- 
tions furnished food for the common mind, and doctrinal 
statements, essentially dead, and wholly inoperative, 
were made to occupy the place of a living Bible. 

Why did not the " Reformers " of the sixteenth cen- 
tury continue as they had begun ? Who authorized 
them to make creeds and catechisms, and to formulate 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 



6 9 



church standards ? Why did they occupy more time in 
discussing Transubstantiation and Predestination — both 
metaphysical and untaught questions, and not compre- 
hensible by the common people, and on which no man's 
salvation depends — than they spent in preaching and 
teaching just what the apostles preached and taught? 
The followers of the Reformers of the sixteenth century 
have had three hundred and fifty years in which to fol- 
low up the apostles, but up to this time they have not 
found them. 



THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 



A history of the origin and development of Church 
Creeds is indeed a curious and entertaining, if not a 
profitable, study. The history of Creeds is not a his- 
tory of genuine reformation, but in the manufacture of 
those tests of church-fellowship we discover the mental 
and spiritual portraits of uninspired men. God "breathed 
into man the breath of lives," but creed-mongers have 
breathed into creeds the putrid breath of sectaries, dog- 
matists, humanists, traditionists, sciolists, scholastics, 
opinionists, purists, transcendentalists, metaphysicians, 
and so forth. God made the Bible, but men made 
creeds. The trail of the serpent is found in every 
human creed. The hope of the world is to be found in 
the Bible ; the hope of prelates and of priests — the 
glowing hope of all sectarian leaders — can be found in 
diverse Symbols of Faith, in the figments and fancies of 
creed architects, in Church Standards which divide the 
people of one common Lord, and in every form of 
"Systematic Theology." which furnishes employment 
to as many theologians, and to as many distinct parties, 
as are represented by these varying systems. In short, 
the history of creed-making is the history of human pas- 
sion, human prejudice, human bigotry, superstition, 
ignorance of God's Word, human ambition, of plots and 
counterplots, of partisans, of strife, of theological tour- 
naments, and of cunning craftiness. They are the 

(7o) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. Jl 

product of ingenious men, intellectually acute, skilled 
in the art of dialectics, and powerful as polemics. 

The history of the incubation and birth of the English 
Prayer-book, or Book of Common Prayer, is a study 
that will tire any mind, and discourage any heart, if one 
has no other object in view except the mere reading of 
its history. It is but just to say that the men, as a 
class, who inflicted creeds upon the world, were better 
in spirit and character than the creeds they made ; and 
that whatever of goodness and greatness they possessed, 
and that whatever of purity and nobility of life they 
manifested, they derived directly from the Word of 
God and from the Fountain of Life ; which fact, by 
itself alone, is a crushing argument against all creeds — 
even against "Revised Creeds," as at present proposed 
by the orthodox world. 

Before the Reformation of Luther, the Missals, Bre- 
viaries, etc. , of the Church of Rome were in use in 
England. In 1537 the Convocation put forth in English 
"The Godly and Pious Institution of a CJiristian Man," 
containing the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Command- 
ments and the Ave Maria. In 1547, in the reign of 
Edward VI., a committee was appointed to draw up a 
Liturgy in English, free from Popish errors. Cranmer, 
Ridley, and other eminent reformers, composed this 
committee, and their book was confirmed by Parliament 
in 1548. This is known as the First Prayer-book of 
Edward VI. A large portion of it was taken from the 
old services used in England before the Reformation ; 
but the labors of Melaucthon and Bucer helped to give 
the book its Protestant form. " About the end of the 
year 1550 exceptions were taken against some parts of 
this book, and Archbishop Cranmer proposed a new 



72 THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 

review. The principal alterations occasioned by this 
second review were the addition of the Sentences, Exhor- 
tations, Confession and Absolution, at the beginning 1 of 
the morning and evening services, which in the First 
Common Prayer-book began with the Lord's Prayer ; 
the addition of the Commandments at the beginning of 
the communion office; the removing of some rites and 
ceremonies retained in the former book, such as the use 
of oil in confirmation, the unction of the sick, prayers 
for the departed souls, the invocation of the Holy Ghost 
at the consecration of the Eucharist, and the prayer of 
oblation that used to follow it ; the omitting the rubric 
that ordered water to be mixed wich the wine, with sev- 
eral other less material variations. The habits, likewise, 
which were prescribed in the former book were in this 
laid aside; and, lastly, a rubric was added at the end of 
the communion office to explain the reason of kneeling 
at the Sacrament." — Hook. The Liturgy, thus revised 
and altered, was again confirmed by Parliament in 155 1, 
and is cited as the Second Prayer-book of Edward VI. 
Queen Mary, on her accession, repealed the acts of 
Edward, and restored, through the influence of her 
Papal advisers, the Romanist prayer-book. "On the 
accession of Elizabeth to the English throne, this repeal, 
however, was reversed, and the second book of Edward 
VI., with several alterations and emendations, was re-es- 
tablished. This Liturgy continued in use during the 
long reign of Elizabeth, and received further additions 
and improvements." — Eadie Eccles. Enc. 

Early in the reign of James I. the Prayer-book was 
again revised, but the "improvements" suggested by 
James were not ratified by Parliament. In 1661, the 
year after the restoration of Charles II., the commis 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 73 

sioners, both Episcopal and Presbyterian, who had 
assembled at the Savoy to revise the Liturgy, having 
come to no agreement, the Convocation agreed to 
certain "alterations and additions. " The whole book, 
being finished, passed both houses of Convocation ; it 
was subscribed to by bishops and clergy, and was rati- 
fied by act of Parliament, and received the royal assent 
May 19, 1662. This was the last revisal of the Book of 
Common Prayer in which any alteration was made by 
public authority. Several attempts have been made to 
revise the book since 1665, but without success. The 
first attempt was made in the reign of William III., 
encouraged by Tillotson and Stillingfleet, who in 1668 
had united with Bates, Manton and Baxter in prepar- 
ing a bill for the "comprehension of Dissenters." 
Failing then, as well as in 168 1, the scheme was re- 
sumed after the Revolution, and in 1689 a commission 
was formed to revise the Prayer-book. A number of 
alterations were suggested, in order, if possible, to 
gratify the Dissenters, but the attempt proved abortive. 
There is at the present time a Liturgical Revision Society 
in England, which, in its Declaration of Principles and 
Objects, proposes to bring the Book of Common Prayer 
"into closer conformity with the written word of God 
and the principles of the Reformation, by excluding all 
those expressions which have been assumed to counte- 
nance Romanizing doctrine or practice." 

After the American Revolution, the "Protestant 
Episcopal Church" was established as an organization 
separate from the Church of England, in 1784. In 
1786, a committee was appointed to adapt the English 
Liturgy to use in America, and they prepared a book, 
which, however, never came into Q-eneral use. 



74 THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 

At the General Convention in October, 1789, the whole subject of 
the Liturgy was thrown open by appointing committees on the differ- 
ent portions of the Prayer-book, whose several reports, with the action 
of the two houses thereupon, were consolidated in the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, etc., as it is now in use, the whole book being ratified 
and set forth by a vote of the Convention on the 16th of October, 1781), 
its use being prescribed from and after the first day of October, 1790. 
The American Liturgy retains all that is excellent in the English ser- 
vice, omits several of its really objectionable features, brings some of 
the offices (the communion, for example) nearer to the primitive 
pattern, modifies others to suit our peculiar institutions, and, on the 
whole, is a noble monument to the wisdom, prudence, piety and 
churchmanship of the fathers of the American Church. By the forty- 
fifth canon of 1832, it is required that every minister shall, before all 
sermons and lectures, and all otlit r occasions of public worship, use 
the Book of Common Prayer, as the same is or may be established by 
the authority of the General Convention of this Church. And in per- 
forming said service, no other prayers shall be used than those pre- 
scribed by the said book. — Hook, Church Dictionary, Am. Ed. 

We ask, where is the scriptural authority for all this 
priestly jugglery and ecclesiastical legislation? There 
is no scriptural authority, and the creed-mongers do not 
pretend to give any. The whole question rests upon 
assumptions. Why, instead of working over three 
hundred years to bring the Book of Common Prayer 
11 into conformity with the written word of God," did they 
not take the "written word of God," and stand upon it, 
and stay there ? Why have they been shuffling around 
these many years ? If it is reform they are after, and 
they are truly seeking the unity of God's people, and if 
they are really desirous of discovering and identifying 
the Apostolic Church, why not accept the teaching of 
inspired apostles, and follow the teaching of the apos- 
tles, and pattern after the model Church as established 
by those holy men of God ? We answer, because if 
they were to do so, they would be shorn of ecclesiasti 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 75 

cal power; bishops could no longer legislate for the 
"laity"; distinctive titles of honor would have to be 
given up ; bishops could not live sumptuously every 
day, and there would be a heavy decrease in their sti- 
pends ; they could no longer lord it over God's heritage, 
and all chances for clerical and prelatical promotion 
would be cut off. Liturgies, and " ; Church Standards," 
and Confessions of Faith, are changed from time to 
time, so as to be adapted to the people and to the 
times. This is worldly wisdom, but not the wisdom 
that comes from above. These ecclesiastical vandals 
dare not change the Bible to suit times and places, and 
the people ; but they will assume to create a creed, and 
then assume to change it with the changing times. 
Did Christ and his apostles leave instructions to the 
effect that the gospel and the plan of salvation should, 
in successive ages, be so changed as to harmonize with 
every form of society, and with the varying forms of 
civil government ? God intended that the truths of the 
Bible and the doctrine of the gospel should educate and 
mold society and civil governments, and not that eccle- 
siastics and civil governments should transform the 
word of God into Creeds and Symbols of Faith. Why 
not as well undertake to change the immutable laws of 
nature as to presume to alter or modify the constitu- 
tional laws of the kingdom of God ? 

What kind of an infallible guide is that to the human 
soul, that "omits objectionable features," and modifies 
others to suit our "peculiar institutions," in order to 
bring the people ' 'nearer to the primitive pattern " ? Why 
not take the "primitive pattern" itself, and lay aside 
all makeshifts and counterfeits ? Can we not understand 
the " primitive pattern " — God's own workmanship — far 



7© THE BOUK uF COMMON PRAYER. 

easier than all human imitations? Creeds do not con- 
tain the principles of reform, much less the light and the 
knowledge that lead to a complete restoration of apos- 
tolic Christianity. If men are wiser and better, it is 
because their love of God and their love of Bible truths 
has made them so. They are good in spite of their 
lifeless creeds. Creeds have not revolutionized the 
world, and set up the right and torn down the wrong, 
but the spirit of Christ and the power of the gospel 
have done it. 



ORIGIN OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION 
OF FAITH. 



We now come to speak of the origin of the Presbyte- 
rian Church and of the formation of the Westminster 
Confession of Faith. A joint resolution of the houses 
of the English Parliament, without the sanction of 
King Charles I , was passed June 12, 1643, which con- 
voked a Synod ' ' for settling the government and liturgy 
of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clear- 
ing of the doctrine of said Church from false aspersions 
and interpretations," and, furthermore, for bringing 
about a more perfect reformation of the Church than 
was obtained under Edward VI. and Elizabeth, by 
which a closer union of sentiment with the Church of 
Scotland and the Reformed churches of the Continent 
might be secured. Parliament appointed to member- 
ship in this Synod one hundred and twenty-one clergy- 
men, taken from the various shires of England, ten 
members of the House of Lords, and twenty members 
from the House of Commons. The General Synod of 
Scotland, August 19, 1643, elected five clergymen and 
three lay elders as commissioners to the Westminster 
Synod. About twenty of the members originally sum- 
moned were clergymen of the Church of England, and 
several of them afterward bishops ; but few of the Epis- 
copal members took their seats. The bishops of the 
English Church never acknowledged its claims, and the 
King condemned its sessions under extreme penalties, 

(77) 



78 ORIGIN OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH. 

June 22, 1643. The Synod, however, contrary to the 
will of the King, convened July 1, 1643, in Westminster 
Abbey (hence the name, Westminster Confession of 
Faith), in the presence of both houses of Parliament. 
The average attendance of clerical members during the 
sessions was between sixty and eighty. The great body 
of the members, both clerical and lay, were Presbyte- 
rians ; ten or twelve were Independents, or, as now 
styled, Congregationalists, and five or six called them- 
selves Erastians. The great majority were Calvinistic 
in faith. 

The purposes for which this august Assembly of 
divines was convoked, as already intimated, were to 
vindicate the doctrine of the Church of England, and 
to recommend such further reformation of her discipline, 
liturgy and government as might "be agreeable to 
God's holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve 
the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agree- 
ment with the Church of Scotland and other Reformed 
churches abroad." But the Parliament, feeling their 
need of Scottish aid, acceded to the Solemn League and 
Covenant, and urged the Scotch to send their deputies 
to the Assembly. Its objects were extended ; and, in 
order to carry out the covenanted uniformity, it was 
empowered to prepare a new Confession of Faith and 
Catechism, as well as directories for public worship and 
church government, which might be adopted by all the 
Churches represented. The Church of Scotland threw 
all its influence in favor of strict Calvinism and Presbyte- 
rianism. Before electing delegates to the Westminster 
Assembly, in compliance with the request of Parliament, 
it adopted, August 17, 1643, the so-called " Solemn 
League and Covenant," which bound the Scottish 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 79 

nation to the defense of the Reformed religion in Scot- 
land, the furtherance of the Reformation in England 
and Ireland in doctrine, worship, church organization 
and discipline ; the establishing of ecclesiastical and 
religious uniformity in the three realms ; the extirpation 
of papacy and prelacy, of heresy and all ungodliness ; 
and the support of all the rights of Parliament and of 
the rightful authority of the King. This document was 
immediately transmitted to Parliament, and thence to 
the Westminster Assembly, and was formally endorsed 
by each of these bodies, but was condemned by the 
King. The Assembly sought to gain the fraternal sym- 
pathies of the Reformed churches on the Continent also, 
and to that end addressed to them circular letters, which 
elicited more or less favorable responses, and which the 
King endeavored to neutralize by issuing a manifesto in 
Latin and English, in which he denied the intention 
charged upon him of re-establishing the Papal power in 
his realm. The Solemn League and Covenant, binding 
the ecclesiastical bodies of the two nations into a union, 
had been passed in Scotland August 17, was subse- 
quently accepted by the Westminster Assembly, and 
ordered by the English Parliament to be printed, Sep- 
tember 21, and subscribed September 25, when the 
House of Commons, with the Scottish commissioners 
and the Westminster Assembly, met in the Church of 
St. Margaret, Westminster. The House of Lords took 
the "Covenant," October 15. 

"The question of church government occasioned the 
most difficulty, and seemed for a time impossible to be 
settled. Many of the most learned divines who were 
entirely on the side cf the Parliament were yet in favor 
of what they termed primitive episcopacy, or the system 



80 ORIGIN OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH. 

in which the presbyters and their president governed 
the churches in common. Then there were the Scottish 
commissioners and the more radical Puritans, who were 
at the opposite extreme; and, in order to reach a con- 
clusion, these differences must be reconciled. It was 
accomplished after much discussion and long delay, by 
the adoption of the Presbyterian form of government." 
A committee, consisting of about twenty-five mem- 
bers, was appointed by the Assembly "to prepare 
matter for a joint Confession of Faith," about August 
20, 1644. The matter was prepared, in part, at least, 
by this committee, and the digesting of it into a formal 
draft was intrusted to a smaller committee on May 
12, 1645. The debating of the separate articles began 
July 7, 1645, and the following day a committee of three 
(afterward increased to five) was appointed to "take 
care of the wording of the Confession," as the articles 
should be adopted in the Assembly. On July 16, the 
committee reported the heads of the Confession, and 
these were distributed to the three large committees to 
be elaborated and prepared for discussion. All were 
repeatedly read and debated in the most thorough man- 
ner possible in the Assembly. On September 25, 1646, 
a part of the Confession was finally passed, and on 
December 4 the remainder received the sanction of the 
Assembly, when the entire document was presented to 
the Parliament. That body ordered the printing of six 
hundred copies for the use of members of Parliament 
and of the Assembly, and that Scripture proofs should 
be added to the Confession, which was accordingly 
done. In 1647 the Confession was approved by the 
Church of Scotland in the form in which it passed the 
Assembly, and it was afterward ratified by the Scotch 



- REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. Si 

Parliament. It was passed by the English Parliament 
in 1648, under the title o\ Articles of Christian Religion, 
but with certain changes. The basis of the Confession, 
says the historian, is doubtless those Calvinistic articles 
which are supposed to have been prepared by Usher, 
and in 161 5 were adopted by the Convocation of the 
Irish Church. In the formation of this Presbyterian 
"Symbol" the Assembly at first undertook to revise 
the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, and 
proceeded with that work until fifteen articles had been 
revamped with elements of a more pronounced Calvin- 
istic character and provided with Scripture proofs. The 
only important change made in this process was the 
omission of Article VIII.. concerning the authority of 
tfie three ecumenical symbols. The intention of the 
Synod was to ground every statement directly on Scrip- 
ture as the only rule of faith, while the Church of 
England, under Edward VI. and Elizabeth, conceded to 
Catholic tradition, "if not in conflict with Scripture, a 
regulative authority." The Scottish delegates, how- 
ever, induced the Assembly to undertake the formation 
of an entirely " new Symbol 

The Confession, under the title of "The Humble Ad- 
vice of the Assembly of Divines, now by Authority of 
Parliament Sitting at Westminster, Concerning a Confession 
of Faith f etc., was printed in London in December, 
1646, without proofs, and in May, 1647, with proofs, 
for the use of the houses of Parliament and the Assem- 
bly. A copy of this last edition was taken to Scotland 
by the commissioners, and from it three hundred copies 
were printed for the use of the General Assembly 
there. After being approved by that body, it was 
published in Scotland with the title of "The Confession 

7 



82 ORIGIN OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH. 

of Faith Agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines f etc., 
and while the House of Commons were still considering 
it, a London bookseller, brought it out under the same 
title in 1648. In the same year it was, with the omis- 
sion of parts of certain chapters, and with some minute 
verbal alterations, approved by the two houses, and 
published under the title, "Articles of Christian Religion, 
Approved and Passed by both Houses of Parliament, after 
Advice had with the Assembly of Divines." But the 
latter form is not common, and the Confession continues 
to be printed in the form in which it was drawn by the 
Assembly and approved by the Church of Scotland. 
The last of the Scotch commissioners left the Assembly 
November 9, 1647. R February 22, 1649, after the 
Assembly had held eleven hundred and sixty-three sit- 
tings, lasting each from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Parliament, 
by an ordinance, changed what remained of the Assem- 
bly into a committee for trying and examining ministers, 
and in this form it continued to hold weekly sittings 
until the dissolution of the "Long Parliament," April 
20, 1653. The Larger CatecJiism was sent to the House 
of Commons October 22, 1647; the Shorter Catechism, 
November 25, the same year. In the autumn of 1648 
both houses of Parliament ordered the printing and 
publishing of the Shorter Catechism, but the House of 
Lords was discontinued before it had acted on the 
Larger Catechism. 

And thus, in the midst of such politico-ecclesiastical 
throes as we have described, the Westminster Confession 
of Faith was born into the world. We have seen that 
the civil powers had as much to do in the manufacture 
of this abstruse, recondite, metaphysical document as 
the Church "divines." It is the creation of statecraft 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 83 

and priestcraft. It is a compromise between Romanism 
and Episcopacy — a sort of hybrid, begotten of the 
Papacy and born of Protestantism. Facts go to show 
that Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, as well as Roman- 
ism, would now, as then, make civil government sub- 
servient to the ecclesiastical authorities. It is but just 
to say that through the instrumentality of the Reformers 
of the sixteenth century the Papacy received a fatal 
blow. But let it be understood that it was not the 
formulation and publication of Confessions of Faith, 
nor the influence of the abstract propositions they 
contained, that paralyzed the arm of the Pope, and that 
gave impulse to the reformatory movements of that 
eventful age. On the contrary, it was the translation 
of the Scriptures into the language of the common 
people, and the faithful proclamation of God's word, 
that effectually and fatally weakened the despotism of 
Rome. It was Luther and Zwingle, exposing the rot- 
tenness of the priesthood of Rome, and Calvin, by the 
word of God, striking at the false theology of Romish 
prelates, and Knox, by the same word of God, before 
creeds took on form, demolishing the governmental 
usurpations of the Papal See, that, combined and 
co-operating, wrought the mighty work, the impulse of 
which revolution still moves among modern reformers. 
As a Bible people, we accept the Bible principles of 
reform, as advocated and applied by the reformers of 
the sixteenth century, but we reject their creeds in toto, 
as being the product of fallible and uninspired men, and 
as being the prolific and chief source of sectarianism 
and a divided Church, with all their concomitants of 
sectarian rivalry, sectarian bigotry and sectarian pride. 
We have our mission, and we know our mission. 



84 ORIGIN OF THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH. 

which is the repudiation of all Symbols of Faith, all 
Church Standards, and all bodies that presume to legis 
late for the Church in the stead of Christ, while at the 
same time we shall elevate the Bible above all the works 
of men, and persistently plead for complete restoration 
of apostolic teaching and practice. 



ORIGIN OF CONGREGATIONALISM. 



We now come to the origin and development of Con- 
gregationalism, which forms an integral and interesting 
chapter in reformatory movements. As contrasted with 
Romanism and Episcopacy, and as contrasted also with 
Presbyterianism, we shall find Congregationalism, as a 
system of "church polity," far in advance of those 
ecclesiastical systems, but, in some features, as falling 
short of the apostolic order of things. We are free to 
admit that Congregationalism makes a nearer approach 
to the primitive order than any of the ' ' Orthodox 
Churches." They claim that their system is only a 
substantial return to the order and practice of the 
apostolic churches, which had been corrupted by the 
tendencies that culminated in the Papacy ; and that 
traces of dissent from the episcopal power are found in 
every age. (See Punchard's History of Congregational- 
ism.} The origin of modern Congregationalism may be 
traced to the early developments of the Reformation in 
England, an account of which we have already given. 
From the beginning of the protest against Romanism, 
some of the principal distinctive opinions, afterward 
developed into Congregational polity, especially the 
identity of "bishop" and "presbyter," and notably the 
independent right of each congregation to choose its 
own "pastor" and exercise discipline, without the 
interposition of council or bishop, found decided advo- 
cates and unflinching adherents. While Henry VIII., 
after repudiating the Romish supremacy, which we have 

(85) 



86 ORIGIN OF CONGREGATIONALISM. 

already noted, adhered to the essential features of 
Romish theology, and in part to Papal polity and prac- 
tice, the advancement of enlightened reason continued 
in the opposite direction. When the reforms conducted 
by Edward VI., already noted in previous chapters of 
this series, were peremptorily brought to a standstill by 
Mary, Queen of Scotland, dissenting congregations, the 
forecast substantially of modern Congregationalism, 
came immediately, though privately, into existence in 
various places, as, for instance, in London in 1555. 
Their existence is learned almost entirely from persecu- 
tions to which their members were subjected, but of 
which few particulars are preserved in history. 

Among the Congregational martyrs were Barrowe, 
Greenwood and Penry, executed in 1593. Of the Con- 
gregational Church formed in London in 1592, of which 
Francis Johnson was "pastor," and John Greenwood 
"teacher," fifty six members were seized and impris- 
oned. Many of them eventually found their way to 
Amsterdam, where they reorganized under the same 
pastor. Robert Brown's publication, in 1582, of " A 
Book which showeth the Life and Manners of all true 
Christians," etc., presents the earliest full development 
of the Independent side of Congregationalism. While 
at first only Puritans, many became Separatists, in 
despair of securing complete reformation in the Church 
of England. About the year 1602 a congregation was 
organized in Gainesborough in Lincolnshire, Rev. John 
Smyth pastor. In 1 606 another congregation was 
formed at Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, Richard Clyton 
pastor, which met at the house of William Brewster. 
Of that congregation John Robinson was a member, 
and afterward associate pastor. In 1606 Mr. Smyth 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 8? 

and his friends removed to Amsterdam. In the follow- 
ing year Mr. Clyton and many of his church-members, 
after enduring great persecution, also escaped to 
Amsterdam, and in 1608 the majority of the remaining 
members of the Scrooby congregation followed. After 
the lapse of about a year the church removed to Leyden. 
But owing to the disadvantage of residing in a country 
of different language and customs from their own, they 
resolved to emigrate to America, and consequently a 
portion of the Leyden Church, with Elder William 
Brewster, after many tedious trials, landed at Plymouth, 
Massachusetts, Dec. 21, 1620 (N. S.), while Robinson, 
with a portion of the congregation, remained at Leyden. 
In 1 616 a Congregational church was established at 
Southwark, London, under the care of Henry Jacob, 
who had been confirmed in Congregational principles 
by conference with John Robinson at Leyden. This 
congregation, organized after Mr. Jacob had conferred 
with leading Puritans, probably gathered together some 
of the scattered members of Mr. Johnson's congregation. 
Though sometimes called "the first Independent 
Church in England," there had been in existence secret 
organizations in the reign of Mary, and the congrega- 
tions of Gainesborough and Scrooby, and, it is said, 
one at Duckenfield, Cheshire County. About 1624 
Rev. John Lathrop became pastor of the Southwark con- 
gregation. In 1632 he was imprisoned, with forty others 
of its members. In 1634 Mr. Lathrop, having been 
released, removed to America, with about thirty of his 
flock, and in that year organized the congregation in 
Scituate, Massachusetts, where he continued till 1639, 
when the majority removed to West Barnstable, where 
that congregation is still existing. 



AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 



The history of the American Congregationalists is 
pretty well known. The Plymouth settlement was dis- 
tinct in origin and government from that of Massachu- 
setts Bay, the Pilgrim settlers being distinctively known 
as the " Pilgrims." The persecutions under Laud, in 
the Old Country, drove many Puritans into the resolu- 
tion to emigrate. Endicott and his companions began 
the colony at Salem, Mass., in 1628, and in 1630 John 
Winthrop, their governor, with other emigrants, occu- 
pied Boston and the surrounding towns. Settlements 
were made at Hartford and Saybrook, in Connecticut, 
in 1635, and in 1638 Davenport and his associates 
founded the New Haven colony, while in 1633 a distinct 
company reinforced the colonies on the Piscataqua 
River. The Plymouth congregation had come out fully 
organized ; in the other settlements congregations were 
immediately formed. None except the Plymouth 
people had come to America as Separatists ; the others 
declared that they did not separate from the Church of 
England, but that, on the contrary, they only desired 
to expurgate its corruptions. But, having colonized in 
a strange and far-away country, removed from all eccle- 
siastical establishments, and searching the Scriptures as 
the basis of their ecclesiastical order, they all adopted 
the Congregational Church polity. Most of their min- 
isters had been regularly ordained in the Church of 
England, and, as is well known, were a highly educated 

(88) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 89 

class of men, as (e. g ) Cotton and Wilson, of Boston ; 
Mather, of Dorchester ; Hooker and Stone, of Hart- 
ford ; Davenport and Hooke, of New Haven. 

American Congregationalism proper received its relig- 
ious form, essentially, in the early religious history of 
New England. If traced to the writings of any one 
person, it would be to those of John Robinson, of Ley- 
den ; those of John Cotton and Thomas Hooker, in 
America, being next in importance. Robert Brown 
was never acknowledged as a leader, he being- a strict 
and severe Independent, and, finally, returning to the 
communion of the Church of England; but, at the same 
time, it is conceded that his writings did undoubtedly 
incite many minds to examine and reject the claims of 
Episcopacy. The system can not, however, be satis- 
factorily traced to any one man, but rather to the united 
sentiment of the early emigrants, who agreed in carrying 
into practice the opinion that every congregation is, 
according to the Scriptures, confined to the limits of a 
single or individual congregation, and that it must be 
democratic in government ; while, at the same time, all 
congregations are regarded as in fellowship with one 
another. Hence the term "the Congregational Church" 
is never used to denote the denomination, but "the 
Congregational churches." 

Congregationalists are generally Calvinistic in the- 
ology, although in the United States there is an 
advanced party who repudiate distinctive Calvinism. 
Congregationalists, as a class, hold to a system of church 
government which embraces these two fundamental 
principles, viz.: (i) that every local congregation of 
believers, united for worship, and for observing the 
"sacraments," and for the enforcement of discipline, is 



90 AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 

a complete church within itself, and can not be subjected 
in governmental affairs to any ecclesiastical authority 
outside of itself; and (2) that all such local congrega- 
tions are in communion with one another, and are under 
moral obligations to fulfill all the duties involved in such 
fellowship. The system is distinguished from Presby- 
terianism by the first, and from Independency by the 
second. It involves the equal right of all the members 
to vote in all governmental affairs ; and the parity of all 
ministers, the ministers being set apart by the congre- 
gations, and who, as ministers, are not invested w 7 ith 
any power of government, but who have official power 
only in the congregations by which they may be chosen 
pastors. It is seen that in regard to the independency 
(autonomy) of the congregations, the Congregationalists 
occupy nearly the same position as that which is held 
by the Disciples of Christ, or by those people who have 
in reality identified the Church of Christ as established 
by the apostles. But the Congregationalists are not 
only wrong in name, viewed from the angle of apostolic 
teaching, but they are wrong in doctrine, which is made 
clear by the fact that they have, in common with all 
pedobaptists, substituted affusion and rantism for im- 
mersion, and practice infant baptism, in respect to which 
practices they are not a whit in advance of the Romish 
Church, from which these violations of the law of God 
have descended. They are right in discarding councils, 
synods, conferences and presbyteries, and right in deny- 
ing all ecclesiastical authority beyond the individual 
congregation, but they are decidedly wrong in changing 
the ordinances of Jesus Christ. As means of regenera- 
tion, they are right in denying the alleged spiritual 
influence of dreams, and visions, and psychological 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 9 1 

impressions, and all hallucinations of tne imagination, 
but as an exponent of the true Apostolic Church, in all 
the constituent elements of the one body, the Congre- 
gational Church is materially defective. It is not built 
exclusively upon the basis of God's Word, and hence 
never can form the nucleus of Christian unity, because, 
if a system is found to be defective in one or more 
parts, it must be rejected as a whole. A system of 
things which presumes to represent the divine model, 
and at the same time incorporates tradition and false 
dogmas, professedly on the principle of human expedi- 
ency, and with a view of conciliating the captious and 
unregenerated world, can never hope to restore, unim- 
paired, the apostolic order of things. 

Hence the necessity of the existence of the people 
known as the Disciples of Christ, who, repudiating all 
ecclesiastical authority outside of the government of 
Christ, and who, rejecting all the creeds and dogmas of 
contradictory and self-consuming sects, plant themselves 
exclusively upon the inspired Scriptures, as their only 
reliable and infallible guide, and as their only rule of 
faith and practice. Their tocsin of war is the avowed 
destruction of all sectism, and the motto of the banner 
they bear is "one Lord, one Faith and one Baptism!" 
They regard the divisions of Christendom as a positive 
sin, and also as the prolific source of infidelity. They 
assume that "the unity of the Spirit" can only secure 
"the bond of peace" — a permanent and lasting peace — 
by an appeal to the Holy" Scriptures, as the only source 
of information and authority. They constantly keep 
before their eyes the last intercessory prayer of our 
Lord: "Neither pray I for these alone [the apostles]; 
but for them also who shall believe on me through their 



92 AMERICAN CONGREGATIONALISM. 

word: that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in 
me, and I in thee; that they also maybe one in us; 
that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." 
YYe hold that sinners can only be saved, and church 
unity accomplished, through the words of the apostles. 
For Christ said to the apostles: " Whoever hears you, 
hears me ; and whoever hears me, hears him who sent 
me." And to the Corinthians (2 Cor. v. 20) Paul writes: 
"Now then, we are ambassadors for Chnst, as though 
God did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's 
stead, be you reconciled to God." Paul said to Timothy, 
" Preach the Word," which excludes the preaching of 
dogmas, theories, opinions, church polities, human 
creeds and " Church Standards." 



ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 



The origin of the Baptist Church is confessedly 
obscure. It is a difficult and involved history to trace. 
The Baptist Church, distinctively, can not be traced 
beyond the sixteenth century. It is purely a creation 
of circumstances. Its incipient developments are found 
in the religious chaos of the sixteenth century. In the 
midst of all the diversities of opinion that existed in 
the Reformation of that eventful period, it was con- 
stantly maintained by Protestants that " Holy Scripture 
containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that 
whatsoever is neither read therein nor may be proved 
thereby, although it be some time received of the faith- 
ful as godly and profitable for an order and comeliness, 
yet no man ought to be constrained to believe it as an 
article of faith or repute it requisite to the necessity of 
salvation." (Articles of King Edward VI.) The oper- 
ation of this broad principle of toleration and private 
judgment was denied by the Church of Rome, and, 
consequently, those who adopted this principle, mani- 
festly so fair and equitable, suffered the anathemas of 
the Papal powers. Each separate body of Protestants 
claimed the privilege of standing on the basis of the 
Scriptures, and was prepared to resist alike the tyranny 
of Rome and what it considered the license of other 
Protestant sects. Thus it came to pass that the Bap- 
tists, or, as their opponents called them, the Anabaptists 
(or, as Zwingle names them, Catabaptists), were stren- 

(93) 



94 ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

uously opposed by all other sects of Protestantism, and 
it was regarded by nearly all the early reformers to be 
the duty of the civil magistrates to punish them with 
fine and imprisonment, and even with death, as an 
abundance of historical documents attest. A writer in 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica says : ' ' There was, no 
doubt, some justification for this severity in the fact 
that the fanaticism which burst forth in the early times 
of the Reformation frequently led to insurrection and 
revolt, and in particular that the leader of the ' peasant 
war' in Saxony, Thomas Miinzer, and probably many 
of his followers, were Anabaptists. One result of this 
severity is, that the records of the early history of the 
Anabaptists, both on the Continent and in this country 
(England), are very few and meagre. Almost all that is 
currently known of them comes to us from their oppo- 
nents. " 

There is, however, much valuable information, together 
with detailed accounts of their sufferings, in the Dutch 
Martyrology of Van Braght, himself a Baptist, which 
bears the title Martalacrs Spiegel der Doopsgesinde 
(2d ed. fol., 1685), an English translation of the latter 
half of which was published in two volumes, 8vo, 
London, 1850-53, edited by Dr. Underhill. now Secre- 
tary of the Baptist Missionary Society. Probably the 
earliest Confession of Faith of any Baptist community 
is that given by Zwingle in the second, part of his 
Elenclms contra Catabaptistas, published in 1527. Zwingle 
professes to give it entire, translating it, as he says, ad 
vcrbum into Latin. He upbraids his opponents with 
not having published these articles, but declares that 
there is scarcely any one of them that has not a written 
(desciiptuni) copy of these laws which have been so well 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 95 

concealed. The articles are in all seven. The first, 
which we give in full, relates to baptism : 

Baptism ought to be given to all who have been taught repentance 
and change of life, and who in truth believe that through Christ 
their sins are blotted out {abotila), and the sins of all who are willing 
(volunt) to walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and who are willing 
to be buried with him into death (not very good Baptist doctrine in 
the present age) that they may rise again with him. To all, therefore, 
who in this manner seek baptism, and of themselves ask us, we will 
give it. By this rule are excluded all baptism of infants, the great 
abomination of the Roman Pontiff. For this article we have the testi- 
mony and strength of Scripture, we have also the practice of the 
apostles ; which things we simply and also steadfastly will observe, for 
we are assured of them. 

The second article, we are told by the same writer, 
relates to withdrawment (abstentio) or excommunication, 
and declares that all who have given themselves to the 
Lord and have been baptized into the one body of CJirisl 
should, if they lapse into sin, be excommunicated. 
(The Baptists of the present day baptize into the Bap- 
tist Church, not "into the one body of Christ, ".as the 
Disciples of Christ teach.) The third article relates to 
the breaking of bread; in this it is declared that they 
who break the one bread in commemoration of the 
broken body of Christ, and drink of the one cup in 
commemoration of his blood poured out, must first be 
united toge titer into the one body of Christ, that is, into 
the Church of God — which is not the Baptist Church of 
the present day. The fourth article asserts the duty of 
separation from the world and its abominations, among 
which are included all papistical and semi-papistical 
works. The fifth relates to pastors of the congregation. 
They assert that the pastor should be some one of the 
flock who has a good report from those who arc with- 
out. " His office is to read, admonish, teach, learn, 



g6 ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

exhort, correct, or excommunicate in the church, and to 
preside well over all the brethren and sisters, both in 
prayer and in the breaking- Q f bread ; and in all things 
that relate to the body of Christ, to watch that it may 
be established and increased so that the name of God 
i nay by us be glorified and praised, and that the mouth 
of blasphemers may be stopped." The sixth article 
relates to the power of the sword. " The sword," they 
say, " is the. ordinance of God outside the perfection of 
Christ, by which the bad is punished and slain, and the 
good is defended." They further declare that a Chris- 
tian ought not to decide or give sen ence in secular 
maters, and that he ought not to exercise the office of 
magistra'e. The seven h article relates to oaths, which 
they declare are forbidden of Christ. 

It is here proper to state, for the benefit of the general 
reader, that the name " Anabaptist " means one baptism 
upon another baptism, or the immersion of those who 
have been sprinkled. There is no doubt of the fact that 
the Anabaptists suffered terrible persecution, and that 
all sorts of epithets of abuse and calumny were heaped 
upon their devoted heads. Zwingle styles them as 
"fanatical, stolid, audacious, impious." To us, at the 
present day, who enjoy personal liberty and religious 
toleration, it appears as shocking as it is wonderful, 
that the Protestant Council of Zurich, which had with 
great difficulty won its own liberty, should pass a 
decree, as Zwingle himself reports, that any person who 
administers anabaptism should be drowned ; and still 
more shocking that, at the time when Zwingle wrote, 
this cruel decree should have been carried into effect 
against one of the leaders of the Anabaptists, Felix 
Mantz, who himself had been associated with Zwingle, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 97 

not only as a student, but also at the beginning of the 
Reformation. In this base and contemptible persecu- 
tion, the Reformers of the sixteenth century have very 
little to be proud of, and such persecution on the part 
of the Reformers only goes to show that the blight of 
Romanism still clung to them, as it still docs to their 
descendants of the present day. In 1537 Menno 
Simonis united with the Anabaptists and soon distin- 
guished himself as their acknowledged leader. His 
moderation and piety, according to Mosheim, held in 
check the turbulent spirit of the more fanatical among 
them. He died in 1561, after a life passed amid contin- 
ual dangers and conflicts. His name remains as the 
ecclesiastical designation of the Mennonites, who even- 
tually settled in the Netherlands under the protection of 
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, many of them 
emigrating to the United States, and settling in the 
Middle and Western States, where their descendants 
have been largely absorbed by the various denomina- 
tions, though some remain in separate bands, here and 
there, who have become wholly indifferent to immer- 
sion. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that "of the intro- 
duction of Baptist views into England we have no 
certain knowledge." Fox relates "that the registers 
of London make mention of certain Dutchmen counted 
for Anabaptists, of whom ten were put to death in sun- 
dry places in the realm, anno 1535 ; the other ten 
repented and were saved." In 1536 Henry VIII., as 
"in earth supreme head of the Church of England," 
issued a proclamation together with articles concerning 
faith agreed upon by Convocation, in which the clergy 
are told to instruct the people that they ought to repute 
8 



gS ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

and take "the Anabaptists' opinions for detestable her- 
esies and to be utterly condemned." The document is 
given in extenso by Fuller, who further tells us from 
Stow's Chronicles that, in the year 1538, "four Anabap- 
tists, three men and one woman, all Dutch, bare faeots 
at Paul's Cross, and three days after a man and woman 
of their sect were burnt in Smithfield." The Anabap- 
tists united in communities separate from the Established 
Church. Latimer, in 1552, speaks of them as segrega- 
ting themselves from the company of other men. We 
have not space to follow the history of the persecutions 
which the Anabaptists endured in England for opinion's 
sake. About the beginning of the seventeenth century 
the severe laws against the Puritans led many dissenters 
to emigrate to Holland. Some of these were Baptists, 
and an English Baptist church was formed in Amster- 
dam about the year 1609. In 161 1 this church published 
"a declaration of faith of English people remaining at 
Amsterdam, in Holland." The article relating to bap- 
tism is as follows: "That every church is to receive in 
all their members by the confession of their faith and 
sins [modern Baptists do not teach this apostolic prac 
tice, but the Disciples of Christ do, mark that], wrought 
by the preaching of the gospel according to the primi- 
tive institution and practice. And therefore, churches 
constituted after any other manner | mark that too], or 
of any other persons, are not according to Christ's tes- 
tament. That baptism or washing with water is the 
outward manifestation of dying unto sin and walking in 
newness of life ; and therefore in nowise appertained! to 
infants." Many members of the Brownist or Independ- 
ent denomination held Baptist views. An Independ- 
ent congregation in London, gathered in the year 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 99 

1616, included several such persons, and as the congre- 
gation was larger than could conveniently meet together 
in times of persecution, they agreed to allow these 
persons to constitute a distinct congregation, which was 
formed on the 12th of September, 1633; an d upon this 
the majority, if not all, of the new congregation were 
baptized. Another Baptist church was formed in Lon- 
don, in 1639. These churches were "Particular" or 
Calvinistic Baptists. The church formed in 1609 a ^ 
Amsterdam held Arminian views. In 1644 a Confession 
of Faith was published in the names of seven congrega- 
tions in London, "commonly (though falsely) called 
Anabaptists," in which were included the two congre- 
gations just mentioned. The article on baptism is as 
follows: "That baptism is an ordinance of the New 
Testament given by Christ to be dispensed only upon 
persons professing faith, or that are disciples, or taught, 
who, upon a profession of faith [not the recital of a 
dreamy "experience," as modern Baptists hold] ought 
to be baptized." "The way and manner of dispensing 
this ordinance the Scripture holds out to be dipping or 
plunging the whole body under water." 

They made a clear distinction between the rights 
of conscience and the rights of the civil magistrates. 
After showing their willingness to yield "subjection 
and obedience " to the magistrates, as unto the Lord, 
and after indulging the hope that God would "incline 
the magistrates' hearts so far to tender our consciences 
as that we might be protected by them from wrong, 
injury, oppression and molestation," they proceed to 
say: " But if God withhold the magistrates' allowance 
and furtherance herein, yet we must, notwithstanding, 
proceed together in Christian communion, not daring 



100 ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

to give place to suspend our practice, but to walk in 
obedience to Christ in the profession and holding forth 
this faith before mentioned, even in the midst of all 
trials and afflictions, not accounting our goods, lands, 
wives, children, fathers, mothers, brethren, sisters, yea, 
and our own lives, dear unto us, so that we may finish 
our course with joy ; remembering always that we ought 
to obey God rather than men." They close their Con- 
fession thus: " If any take this that we have said to be 
heresy, then do we with the apostle freely confess, that 
after the way which they call heresy worship we the 
God of our fathers, believing all things which are written 
in the Law and in the Prophets and Apostles, desiring 
from our souls to disclaim all heresies and opinions 
which are not after Christ, and to be steadfast, immov- 
able, always abounding in the work of the Lord, as 
knowing our labor shall not be in vain in the Lord." 
This breathing spell, however, was not of long continu- 
ance, for soon after the Restoration, in 1660, the meet- 
ings of Nonconformists were continually disturbed by 
the constables, and their preachers were carried before 
the magistrates and fined or imprisoned, of which 
numerous instances could be given. 

The history of the persecution of Baptists, as well as 
of other Protestant dissenters, ceases with the Revolu- 
tion of 1688, and the passing of the Act of Toleration 
in 1689. The removal of the remaining disabilities, 
such as those imposed by the Test and Corporation 
Acts repealed in 1828, has no special bearing on Bap- 
tists more than on other Nonconformists. The ministers 
of the ■* three denominations of dissenters" — Presbyte- 
rians, Independents and Baptists — resident in London 
and the neighborhood, had the privilege accorded to 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. IOI 

them of presenting on proper occasions an address to 
the sovereign in state, a privilege which they still enjoy. 
It is unfortunate that modern Baptists have not car- 
ried out the principles of reform as proclaimed by the 
Baptists of the seventeenth century, who verged very 
close upon apostolic restoration; for we see in the his- 
tory of the early Baptists that they, upon profession of 
faith, baptized believers into the one body of Christ, 
and that, too, without postponement. The early Bap- 
tists depended upon the Word of God as the source of 
enlightenment, regeneration and sanctification, and not 
on a ''Christian experience" — not on special illumina- 
tion without the Word of God — not on the mystic and 
twistic operations of an abstract Spirit, out of which 
theory of conversion have come, in the modern Baptist 
Church, illusions, hallucinations, sensuistic impressions, 
ecstasies, dreams and many other vagaries. The Bap- 
tists of the seventeenth century had a clearer perception 
of apostolic teaching, had a more comprehensive view 
or grasp of the scheme of redemption, and approxi- 
mated more nearly the New Testament order of things, 
than the modern school of Baptists, who have been 
spoiled by contact with pedobaptist " orthodoxy" — by 
contact with "Evangelical Churches" — whose smiles 
they court, and whose ill-will they seek to propitiate. 
The earlier Baptists did not baptize into the Baptist 
Church, as is the modern practice, but they baptized 
believing penitents "into the one body of Christ," 
which sounds exactly like apostolic teaching. We read 
of no monthly meetings called for the examination of 
converts who gave an "experience" of something that 
never occurred, except in the imagination of the con- 
vert; nor do we read that their "experience," wrought 



102 



ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH. 



by the strivings of a "still small voice," was taken as 
an evidence of pardon ; nor do we read of sinners being 
pardoned before immersion into the one body; nor do 
we learn from the records that they held monthly com- 
munion seasons, instead of communing on every first 
day of the week. 



THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE UNITED 
STATES. 



We continue our observations upon the origin and 
history of the Baptist Church. Some writers (as, for 
instance, Orchard, in his History of Foreign Baptists, 
London, 1838) have attempted to trace an uninterrupted 
succession of Baptist churches from the time of the 
apostles down to the present. He gives as the sum- 
ming up of his researches, that "all Christian commu- 
nities during the first three centuries were of the Baptist 
denomination in constitution and practice. In the 
middle of the third century the Novation Baptists 
established separate and independent societies, which 
continued until the end of the sixth age, when these 
communities were succeeded by the Paterines, which 
continued until the Reformation (15 17). The Oriental 
Baptist churches with their successors, the Paulicians, 
continued in their purity until the tenth century, when 
they visited France, resuscitating and extending the 
Christian profession in Languedoc, where they flour- 
ished till the Crusading army scattered, or drowned in 
blood, one million of unoffending professors. The 
Baptists in Piedmont and Germany are exhibited as 
existing under different names down tc the Reformation. 
These churches, with their genuine successors, the 
Mennonites of Holland, are connectedly and chronolog- 
ically detailed to the present period." 

We showed in a previous article that the Baptist 

(103) 



104 THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Church could not be traced beyond the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and that the Church, or sect rather, had its rise 
among the Anabaptists. As a contradiction of Orchard's 
assumptions the Christian Review (January, 1855, p. 
23), the leading Baptist quarterly of America, speaks 
as follows : 

"We know of no assumption more arrogant, and 
more destitute of proper historic support, than that 
which claims to be able to trace the distinct and un- 
broken existence of a church substantially Baptist from 
the time of the apostles down to our own." Thus also 
Cutting {Historic Vindications, Boston, 1859, p. 14) 
remarks on such attempts: "I have little confidence in 
the results of any attempt of that kind which have met 
my notice, and I attach little value to inquiries pursued 
for the predetermined purpose of such a demonstra- 
tion." 

The Baptist churches in the United States owe their origin to Roger 
Williams, who, before his immersion, was an Episcopalian minister. 
He was persecuted for opposing the authority of the State in ecclesias- 
tical affairs and for principles which ' k tended to Anabaptism." In 
1639 he was immersed by Ezekiel Holliman, and in turn immersed 
Holliman and ten others, who with him organized a Baptist church at 
Providence, Rhode Island. A few years before (1635), though un- 
known to Williams, a Baptist preacher of England, Hansard Knollys, 
had settled in New Hampshire and taken charge of a church in Dover; 
but he resigned in 1639 and returned to England. Williams obtained 
in 1644 a charter for the colony which he and his associates had 
founded in Rhode Island, with full and entire freedom of conscience. 
Rhode Island thus became the first Christian State which ever granted 
full religious liberty. In other British colonies the persecution against 
the Baptists continued a long lime. Massachusetts issued laws against 
them in 1644, imprisoned several Baptists in 1651, and banished others 
in 1669. In 1680 the doors of a Baptist meeting-house were nailed 
up. In New York laws were issued against them in 1632, in Virginia 
in 1664. With the beginning of the eighteenth century the persecu- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 105 

tion greatly abated. T'ley were released from tithes in 1727 in Massa- 
chusetts, in 1729 in New Hampshire and Connecticut, but not before 
1785 in Virginia. The spread of their principles was greatly hindered 
by these persecutions, especially in the South, where in 1776 they 
counted about one hundred societies. After the Revolution they 
spread with extraordinary rapidity, especially in the South and South- 
west, and were inferior in this respect only to the Methodists. In 
1817 a triennial general convention was organized, which, however, 
has since been discontinued. In 1845 the discussion of the slavery 
question led to a division of the Northern and Southern Baptists. The 
destruction of slavery, in consequence of the failure of the Great 
Rebellion and the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment in 1865, 
led to efforts to reunite the societies of the Northern and Southern 
States. The Northern associations generally expressed a desire to co- 
operate again with the Southern brethren in the fellowship of Christian 
labor, but they demanded from the Southern associations a profession 
of loyalty to the United States Government, and they themselves 
deemed it necessary to repeat the testimony which, during the war, 
they had, at each annual meeting, borne against slavery. The 
Southern associations that met during the year 1865 were unanimously 
in favor of continuing their former separate societies, and against fra- 
ternizing with the Northern societies. They censured the American 
Baptist Home Missionary Society for proposing, without consultation 
or co-operation with the churches, associations, conventions or organ- 
ized boards of the Southern States, to appoint ministers and mission- 
aries to preach and raise churches within the bounds of the Southern 
associations. Some of the Southern associations, like that of Virginia, 
consequently advised the churches "to decline any co-operation or 
fellowship with any of the missionaries, ministers or agents of the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society." A number of negro Bap- 
tist churches in the Southern States separated from the Southern 
associations, and either connected themselves with those of the North, 
or organized, with the co-operation of the Northern missionaries, inde- 
pendent associations. — McClintock and Strong's Bib , Theo. and Ec. Enc, 
Vol. I., p. 654. 

In the United States the Baptist family is divided 
into the Regular Baptists, or Missionary Baptists, 
Seventh-day Baptists, Anti-mission Baptists, Free-Will 
Baptists and Six Principle Baptists. The Free or Open 



106 THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 

Communion Baptists, who were organized about 1810, 
united in 1841 with the Free- Will Baptists. 

The Baptists have no standard Confession of Faith. 
The congregation being independent as to governmental 
affairs, each adopts its own articles of belief. Tn Eng- 
land the kl 01d Connection" are chiefly Socinians ; the 
11 New Connection," evangelical Arminians ; the "Par- 
ticular Baptists," Calvinists of various shades. In the 
United States, the Regular Baptists are for the most 
part Calvinists. The Baptists generally form "Associa- 
tions," which, however, exercise no jurisdiction over 
the churches. They recognize no higher church officers 
than pastors and deacons. Elders are sometimes or- 
dained as evangelists and missionaries. Though Regular 
Baptists accept of no authority other than the Bible for 
their faith and practice, yet nearly all of the societies 
have a Confession of Faith in pamphlet form for distri- 
bution among its members. The "New Hampshire 
Confession of Faith," which contains nineteen Articles, 
is more generally used among the societies in the North 
and East, while the "Philadelphia Confession of Faith," 
which embodies twenty- five Articles, is the one gener- 
ally adopted in the South. The American Baptist 
churches are more rigid on the question of " close com 
munion " than are the British Baptist churches. The 
German Baptists of America, commonly known as 
Dunkers, but who denominate themselves " Brethren, " 
originated at Schwarzenan, in Germany, in 1708, and 
were driven by persecution to America, between the 
years 17 19 and 1729. They purposely neglect any 
record of their proceedings, and are opposed to statistics, 
which they believe to foster pride. They originally set- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. IO? 

tied in Pennsylvania, but are now most numerous in 
Ohio and Indiana. 

The Regular Baptists, unlike most of the Protestant 
denominations, have no distinctive creed which is made 
a test of fellowship. They have, however, a "visible 
church" and an "invisible church," which duplex order 
of things, unlike the Church of Christ as founded by his 
apostles, is the source of much confusion and mysticism. 
The spiritual birth, as taught by Baptists, brings sinners 
into the "invisible church," while, at the same time, 
regenerated sinners in the "invisible church" can not 
come into the "visible church" — into the Baptist 
Church — until they are immersed ! To say the least, 
this is not New Testament teaching. Though Baptists 
may not intend it, this is a practical denial that baptism, 
as the consummating act in the divine process, is for the 
remission of sins — a positive contradiction of the words 
of the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. Baptists 
teach that sinners are directly illuminated and regener- 
ated by the special and mystic influence of the Holy 
Spirit, without the mediation of the Word of God, and 
that a special grace, not revealed in the gospel, is neces- 
sary to convict and. convert the sinner. This is a prac- 
tical nullification of " the gospel "as " the power of God 
unto salvation to all them who believe." They claim 
that by the direct regenerating influence of the Spirit, 
the convicted sinner is made conscious, without the testi- 
mony of God's word, of the forgiveness of sins, and of 
justification, and of adoption into the family of God — - 
into the "invisible church." He is called upon to give 
a "Christian experience" of what he sazv and felt, as 
an evidence of pardon, thus setting aside the Word of 
God, or the law of pardon in the gospel, as the only 



108 THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 

revealed evidence. The convert tells what the Lord has 
done for him through the strivings of the Spirit, and 
instead of relying on the testimonies of God's word for 
evidence of pardon, such as was preached by the apos- 
tles, he revels in dreams and fancies, and substitutes his 
feelings, called a ''Christian experience," for the law of 
pardon, as proclaimed by the apostles in the name of 
Jesus Christ. 

According to such mystical teaching, the sinner is 
regenerated, born of God, saved, justified, sanctified, 
adopted and made a child of God without the birth of 
baptism ! And yet this alleged child of God — directly 
regenerated by the Holy Spirit, saved from his sins, 
justified, sanctified and adopted — can not enter the 
Baptist Church— the " visible church " — until he is im- 
mersed ! Here is the startling disclosure made that 
immersion is a ''non-essential" in constituting a sinner a 
child of God — a citizen of the "invisible kingdom" — 
but that in order to become a child in the Baptist family 
— a member in the "visible church" — immersion is 
made very essential! Such mystical teaching did not 
obtain in the apostolic church, and hence we have good 
reason for rejecting it. As neither Christ nor the apos- 
tles ever founded a Baptist church, nor taught the direct 
agency of the Holy Spirit in the conversion of sinners, 
nor appointed "monthly meetings" where converts 
might give the " experience" of their feelings as an evi- 
dence of pardon, nor appointed the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper but once a month, we reject all such theol- 
ogy as unscriptural and non-apostolic. By such dreamy 
speculation, and with no other evidence but the feelings 
of the misguided sinner, the Baptists contradict (through 
ignorance of the plan of salvation, it may be) the doc- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. IO9 

trine that the Word of God is the ' ' sword of the Spirit," 
which "kills and makes alive." Surely, with such evi- 
dence before us, we dare not say that the Baptist Church 
is identical with the Church of Christ, which the apos- 
tles founded, and who made immersion into the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 
essential to salvation, a doctrine which the Baptist 
Church ignores. 



ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 



John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was born 
at Epworth, Lincolnshire, England, June 17, 1703. He 
was raised in the Church of England, was ordained a 
priest in 1728, by Bishop Potter, and died an Episco- 
palian. At the age of thirty-five he was scarcely known 
beyond the academic circles of Oxford. From child- 
hood he was deeply devout and religious and conscien- 
tious, which characteristics he inherited from a mother 
of superior endowments and of rare excellency of char- 
acter. His love of learning was very strong, and he 
was very studious at college, but ' ' his poverty held him 
back from the costly vices which enslaved many of his 
college companions." It is said by one of his biograph- 
ers that his uncommonly fine traits of character, and his 
narrow, not to say marvelous, escape from the burning 
rectory when he was six years of age, gave birth in the 
mind of his mother to an impression that this child was 
destined to an extraordinary career. She therefore con- 
secrated him to God with special solemnity, resolving 
"to be more particularly careful * * * to 

instill into his mind the principles of religion and virtue. " 
He received some of his first religious impressions while 
reading the Christian's Pattern, by Thomas a Kempis. 
The perusal of Law's Christian Perfection and Serious 
Call deepened these convictions, " and led him to devote 
himself, soul, body and substance, to the service of 
God." " But, owing to his failure to comprehend the 

(no) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. Ill 

scriptural doctrine of salvation by faith only, he groped 
in the dark through thirteen years of ascetic self-denial, 
ritualistic observances, unceasing prayer, and works of 
charity, before he gained an assurance that God, for 
Christ's sake, had pardoned his sins.'' And his change 
of heart, "through those long, wearisome, comfortless 
years of seeking God without finding him," is thus 
related : 

And when, on his voyage to Savarinah (Ga.), he saw some pious 
Moravians rejoicing, while he was shaking with fears of death, amid 
the fury of a storm which apparently was driving them into the jaws 
of destruction, he did not suspect that his fear was the fruit of his 
erroneous views. He talked much with some of the Moravian brethren 
after his arrival in Savannah ; but it was not until after his return to 
England in 173S, that Peter Bohler, a Moravian preacher in London, 
after much conversation, aided by the testimonies of several living 
witnesses, convinced him that to gain peace of mind he must renounce 
that dependence upon his own works which had hitherto been the bane 
of his experience, and replace it with a full reliance on the blood of 
Christ shed for him. To gain this faith he strove with all possible 
earnestness. And at a Moravian Society meeting in Aldersgate Street, 
while one was reading Luther's statement of the change which God 
works in the heart through faith, Wesley says: " I felt my heart 
strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salva- 
tion ; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, 
even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." — Rev D. 
Wise, D.D., in McClintock and Strong's Enc, Vol. VI., p. 913.) 

In November, 1729, the Wesley brothers, Whitefield 
and their associates, about a dozen young men, students 
of Oxford University — formed themselves into a society 
for purposes of mutual moral and spiritual improve- 
ment. As members of the Church of England, which 
had lost all love of souls and all desire for spiritual life 
through formalism and ritualism, these young men 
sought to excite new life into a dead body, and to stim- 
ulate piety among a people where none existed. In 



112 ORIGIN OF METHODISM. 

view of the corrupt and lifeless condition of the Church 
of England, they voluntarily abandoned themselves to a 
life of self-denial and personal consecration. By instruct- 
ing the children of the neglected poor; by visiting the 
sick and the inmates of prisons and almshouses ; by a 
strict observance of the fasts appointed by the Church, 
and by scrupulous exactness in their attendance upon 
public worship, they became objects of general notice. 
They were severely criticised and treated with contempt 
by their formalistic contemporaries, and, as is usual in 
such cases, their sincerity called in question by mockers 
and scoffers. Even by their fellow-students they were 
called in turn, Sacrament. iria/is, Bible-bigots, Bible-moths, 
the Godly Club. One, a student of Christ Church Col- 
lege, with greater reverence than his fellows, and more 
learning, observed, in regard to their methodical manner 
of life, that a new sect of Methodists had sprung up, 
alluding to the ancient school of physicians known by 
that name. The appellation obtained currency, and, 
although the title is still sometimes used reproachfully 
as expressive of enthusiasm or undue religious strict- 
ness, it has become the acknowledged designation of 
one of the largest bodies of religious people of modern 
times. 

" Wesley's idea at this time, and for many years after- 
ward," says Keats {History of the Free Churches of Eng- 
land, p. 363), " was merely to revive the state of religion 
in the Church ; but he knew enough of the condition of 
society in England, and of human nature, to be aware 
that, unless those who had been brought under the 
awakening influence of the gospel met together, and 
assisted each other in keeping alive the fire which had 
been lit in their hearts, it must, in many instances, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I I 3 

seriously diminish, if not altogether die out." By this 
fact it will be seen that it was no part of the design of 
Wesley and his associates to found a new religious sect. 
"He considered them all members of the Church of 
England — zealous for her welfare, and loyal to her 
legitimate authorities." So says a Methodist authority, 
because such are the facts of history. 



ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH. 



The Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States 
received its official title, as a distinct body, at what is 
historically known as the " Christian Conference," which 
began its sessions in Baltimore, on Friday, December 
24, 1784. The first Methodist service in America is 
supposed to have been held in the year 1766, in the city 
of New York, by Philip Embury, an Irish emigrant and 
local preacher, a carpenter by trade, who was moved 
thereto by the stirring appeals of Barbara Heck, an 
Irish woman, whose name is illustrious in the annals of 
the denomination. In the course of a year or two their 
numbers had considerably increased, and- they wrote to 
John Wesley requesting him to send them out some 
competent preachers. Two at once offered' themselves 
for the work, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, 
who were followed in 177 1 by Francis Asbury and Rich- 
ard Wright. The agitations preceding the War of 
Independence, which soon afterward broke out, inter- 
rupted the labors of the English Methodist preachers 
in America, all of whom, with the exception of Asbury, 
returned to England before the close of the year 1777; 
but their place appears to have been supplied by others 
of native origin, and they continued to prosper, so that, 
at the termination of the Revolutionary struggle, they 
numbered forty-three preachers and thirteen thousand 
seven hundred and forty members. 

("4) 



' REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 1 5 

Up to this time the American Wesleyan Methodists 
had laid no claim to being a distinct religious organiza- 
tion. Like Wesley himself, they regarded themselves 
as members of the English Episcopal Church, or rather 
of that branch of it then existing in this country, 
and their preachers as a body of irregular auxiliaries to 
the ordained clergy. It is said that "Episcopal 
churches are still standing in New York (or were but a 
few years since) and elsewhere, at whose altars Embury, 
Pilmoor, Boardman, Strawbridge, Asbury and Rankin, 
the earliest Methodist preachers, received the holy com- 
munion." But the recognition of the United States as 
an independent country, and the difference of feeling 
and interests that necessarily sprung up between the 
congregations in America and those in England, ren- 
dered the formation of an independent society inevitable. 
Wesley became conscious of this, and met the emer- 
gency in a manner as bold as it was unexpected. 
Himself only a presbyter in the Church of England, he 
persuaded himself that in the primitive Church a pres- 
byter and a bishop were one and the same order, differ- 
ing only as to their official function; he, assuming the 
office of the latter, and, with the assistance of some 
other presbyters who had joined his movement, set 
apart and ordained Rev. Thomas Coke, D.C.L, of 
Oxford University, Bishop of the infant Church, Sep- 
tember 2, 1784. Coke immediately sailed for America, 
and appeared, with his credentials, at the Conference 
held at Baltimore, December 25, of the same year. He 
was unanimously recognized by the assembly of preach- 
ers, and appointed Asbury coadjutor bishop, and ordained 
several preachers to the offices of deacon and elder. 
Wesley also granted the preachers permission (which 



Il6 ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

shows the extensive ecclesiastical power he wielded) to 
organize a separate and independent church under the 
Episcopal form of government ; hence arose the " Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church in the United States of Amer- 
ica." 

To facilitate the work of Coke and Asbury, Wesley 
furnished them with a "Sunday Service," or liturgy, a 
collection of songs and hymns, and also "The Articles 
of Religion," twenty-four of them, which he selected 
from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Book of Prayer, 
and which he revised for the benefit of the churches in 
the United States. Upon the arrival of Coke in 
America, accompanied by his ordained elders and 
d aeons (he being ordained by Wesley "superintend- 
ent" — afterward tortured into bishop), a special confer- 
ence or convention of the itinerant preachers was 
summoned, and on the 24th of December, sixty of them 
assembled in the Lovely Lane Chapel in the city of 
Baltimore. Dr. Coke took the chair, and presented the 
following letter from Wesley, written eight days after 
the ordinations, and tersely stating the grounds of what 
he had done and advised. As this letter contains the 
pith of Episcopal Methodism, we give it entire : 

To Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and our Brethren in North America : — By a 
very numerous train of providences many of the provinces of North 
America are totally disjoined from their mother country, and erected 
into independent States. The English Government has no authority 
over them, either civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over the States 
of Holland. A civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the 
Congress and partly by the provincial assemblies ; but no one either 
exercises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this peculiar 
situation some thousands of the inhabitants of these States desire my 
advice ; and in compliance with their desire, I have drawn up a little 
sketch. 

Lord King's account of the Primitive Church convinced me, many 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 11/ 

years ago, that bishops and presbyters are of the same order, and con- 
st qaently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been 
importuned, from time to time, to exercise this right, by ordaining 
part of our traveling preachers. But I have still refused, not only for 
peace' sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate 
the established order of the National Church, to which I belonged. 

But the case is widely different between England and North 
America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In 
America there are none, neither any parish ministers ; so that for 
some hundred miles together there is none either to baptize or to 
administer the Lord's Supper. Here, therefore, my scruples are at 
an end, and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and 
invade no man's right by appointing and sending laborers into the 
harvest. 

I have accordingly appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. Francis Asbury to 
be joint superintendents over our brethren in North America, as also 
Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey to act as elders among them, by 
baptizing and administering the Lord's Supper. And I prepared a 
liturgy little differing from that of the Church of England (I think the 
best constituted national church in the world), which I advise all the 
traveling preachers to use on the Lord's-day in all the congregations, 
reading the litany only on ' Wednesdays and Fridays, and praying 
extempore on all other days. I also advise the elders to administer 
the Supper of the Lord on every Lord's-day. 

If any one will point out a more rational and scriptural way of feed- 
ing and guiding those poor, sheep in the wilderness, I will gladly 
embrace it. At present I can not see any better method than I have 
taken. 

It has, indeed, been proposed to desire the English bishops to ordain 
part of our preachers for America ; but to this I object : (1)1 desired 
the bishop of London to ordain only one, but could not prevail. (2) 
If they consented, we know the slowness of their proceedings ; but the 
matter admits of no delay. (3) If they would ordain them now, they 
would likewise expect to govern them ; and how grievously would this 
entangle us ! (4) As our American brethren are now totally disentan- 
gled, both from the State and the English hierarchy, we dare not 
entangle them again, either with the one or the other. They are now 
at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the Primitive 
Church. And we judge it best that they should stand in that liberty 
wherewith God has so strangely made them free. 



Il8 ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

After the reading and consideration of this document, 
it was, without a single dissenting voice, regularly and 
formally "agreed to form a Methodist Episcopal Church, 
in which the liturgy (as presented by Rev. John Wes- 
ley) should be read, and the sacraments be administered 
by a superintendent, elders and deacons, who shall be 
ordained by a presbytery, using the Episcopal form, as 
prescribed in Rev. Mr. Wesley's Prayer-book;" or, in 
the language of the Minutes of the Conference, " follow- 
ing the counsel of Mr. John Wesley, who recommended 
the Episcopal mode of government, we thought it best 
to become an Episcopal Church, making the Episcopal 
office elective, and the elected superintendent or bishop 
amenable to the body of ministers and preachers." 

Wesley was an Episcopalian, and thoroughly believed 
in the Episcopal form of church govern ^ent. " I firmly 
believe," he said, " I am a scriptural Episcopos, as much 
as any man in England or in Europe; " but he did not 
believe in an "uninterrupted succession." When he 
ordained Coke a "superintendent," he ordained him a 
bishop. He objected to the title as it was used in the 
English Church, but did not object to the thing itself. 
He was opposed to the abuse of the office, not the use 
of it. At any rate, the Episcopacy of the English 
Church was incorporated into the Methodist Church of 
America, with three orders of clergy, viz.: bishops, 
elders and deacons. 



WESLEY NOT A METHODIST. 



Like Luther, Zwingle, Calvin and Knox, Wesley 
never made any attempt to return to apostolic practice, 
nor did either of these Reformers even suggest the idea 
of reproducing the Church of Christ as established by 
the apostles. They simply aimed to re-form existing 
ecclesiastical institutions. As to Wesley, he desired to 
re-form the Church of England by vitalizing and spirit- 
ualizing its priesthood, and by arousing the activities 
of its membership ; and, as respected his work in 
America, as we have already seen, it is very evident 
that he sought, with the tact and diplomacy of a crafty 
statesman, to adjust the Church of England to the pecul- 
iar political condition of the government of the United 
States— to a republican form of government as contrasted 
with a kingly government. He was a shrewd manager 
in politico-ecclesiastical affairs. He was a proficient in 
the study of adaptations of means to the consummation 
of proposed measures, and it is a noteworthy fact that, 
up to this day, the same spirit of diplomacy — the same 
spirit of accommodation to surrounding influences — per- 
vades the entire fabric of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. That Wesley was well acquainted with New 
Testament teaching and apostolic practice, is a fact 
made evident in his Explanatory Notes upon the New 
Testament, in his Doctrinal Tracts, and in his letters of 
instructions to the churches. Indeed, so vigorously did 
he advocate baptism for remission of sins in his Doctrinal 

(119) 



120 WESLKY NOT A METHODIST. 

Tracts, that a good deal of what he said upon that sub- 
ject has been expunged in the latest editions, if the 
work itself has not been entirely suppressed* In his 
letter "to Dr. Coke, Mr. Asbury, and our brethren in 
North America," which we reproduce in a previous 
chapter, he "advises the elders to administer the Supper 
of the Lord on every Lord s-day" (which sounds very 
apostolic), and leaves them "at full liberty simply to 
follow the Scriptures and the Primitive ChurcJi" (which 
also sounds very apostolic). And it looks very apos- 
tolic when we quote and read the following words from 
the Preface of his " New Testament Notes" : " Would 
to God that alt the party names and unscriptural phrases 
and forms, which have divided the Christian world, zvere 
forgot ; a?id that zve might all sit down together as Jiumble, 
loving disciples at the feet of our common Master, to hear 
his word, to imbibe Jus spirit, and to transcribe his life into 
otir own." 

The case of John Wesley is but another illustration of 
the fact that a man may, as a scholar and as an honest 
interpreter of historical facts, acknowledge and advo- 
cate the truth, while at the same time his judgment is 
swayed by ecclesiastical associations, and by a love of 
some particular form of theology, or by self-interest, 
which not unfrequently outweighs all considerations for 
the unity and peace of the Church of Christ. When we 
open histories, and read the works of commentators, 
and examine the critical and exegetical authorities of 
educated men, we are made to rejoice at the unanimity 
with which they all speak of apostolic precedent and 
practice and to rejoice in the hope that the restoration 
of apostolic Christianity will soon become an accom- 
plished fact ; but when we take a survey of the religious 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 121 

situation, and see the persistent efforts put forth by the 
various Protestant denominations to maintain ecclesias- 
tical distinctions, and to support antagonistic creeds, and 
to apologize for divisions, we utterly despair of realizing 
the unity of Christians upon the basis of the Bible. 
Concerning the views of Wesley on church government, 
we here produce one who is competent to speak. Says 
Dr. Curry, of the Christian Advocate (New York, May 
25, 1S71): 

X fact respecting the history of John Wesley is more clearly manir 
fe. r t than that he was always a strenuous supporter of the authority of 
the Established Church of England. He jealously regarded the 
exclusive ecclesiastical authority of that Church in all that he did as 
an evangelist, and seemed always determined that while he lived and 
ruled — and it was always understood that he ivould rule as long as 
he lived — nothing should be tolerated in his societies at all repugnant 
to the sole and exclusive ecclesiastical authority of the Established 
Church, This rule was applied to his societies in America before the 
Revolution just as strictly as to those in England. But the political 
separation of America from Great Britain, as it also ended the author- 
ity of the English Church in this country, made it lawful, according 
to his theory of the case, for the Methodist societies in America to 
become regularly organized churches. 

The theological tenets and dogmas of Wesleyan 
Methodism, with perhaps two or three modifications, 
are the same as those which, by common consent, are 
at present deemed '' evangelical" or " orthodox." The 
articles of religion drawn up by Wesley for his imme- 
diate followers, and substantially adopted by all Metho- 
dist bodies since, are but slightly modified from those 
of the Established Church of England. The sermons 
of John Wesley, and his notes on the New Testament, 
are recognized by his followers in Great Britain and 
America as the standard of Methodism, and as the basis 
of their theological creed. There are, according to 



122 WESLEY NOT A METHODIST. 

McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia, about nine sub- 
divisions of the Methodist body in the old country, viz.: 
the Wesleyan Methodists; the Calvinistic Methodists; 
the Wesleyan Methodist New Connection ; the Band- 
Room Methodists; the Primitive Methodists; the Byran- 
ites, or Bible Christians; the Primitive Methodists of 
Ireland: the Protestant Methodists; the Wesleyan Meth- 
odist Association ; the Reformers ; the Wesleyan Reform 
Union. In the United States we have the Methodist 
Episcopal Church ; the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South ; the Wesleyan Methodist Church ; the African' 
Methodist Episcopal Church ; the African Methodist 
Episcopal (Zion) Church ; the United Brethren in Christ, 
sometimes called German Methodists; the Evangelical 
Association ; the Free Methodist Church ; the Colored 
Methodist Church, besides a few others of less signifi- 
cance. According to the apostle Paul, all this is Ll car- 
nal," and not " spiritual." " The unity of the faith " is 
not found in all these divisions and subdivisions. The 
apostles of the Lamb never founded one of these. They 
have all originated within a little over a hundred years. 
As distinct organizations, they are all of the "earth, 
earthy." They are all founded upon the opinions and 
speculations and dreams of men, and the mark of the 
beast is impressed upon them all. At the Pan-Presby- 
terian Convocation, held in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1877, 
Dr Bailie declared that there were "forty branches of 
the Presbyterian family" in existence, but he failed to 
tell that "the trail of the Serpent is over them all." 
In making these remarks, we speak not of good men 
and women, and of intelligent and philanthropic men 
and women, in them all ; but we speak of the systems 
of theology and of the distinct ecclesiastical organiza- 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 123 

tions which these bodies represent, as wickedly sectarian, 
and as a burning disgrace to the Author of Christianity. 
None of these sects originated under apostolic teach- 
ing, none of them ran be dated beyond the sixteenth 
century ; and hence, as misrepresenting the Church of 
Christ, which the apostles founded, we reject them all. 
The Methodist theology advocates "justification by 
faith alone," and the preachers of that distinctive the- 
ology tell us that it is a doctrine very " full of comfort," 
when at the same time, be it known, that there is no 
such doctrine in the Word of God. What they call jus- 
tification by faith alone, is justification by sensuous 
feeling — an ecstasy, an illusion, a dream, a vain imagi- 
nation, the delights of animal magnetism — which they 
tell us is wrought directly by the mystic impulse of the 
Holy Spirit, without illumination and conviction by the 
testimonies of God's word. The Methodist Church 
makes baptism a "non-essential" to salvation, thus 
directly insulting the Author of the Plan of Salvation, 
and substituting human expediency for divine law. 
The Methodist Episcopal system not only lodges legis- 
lative authority in a bench of bishops — in a General 
Conference — where they make and unmake rules and 
regulations to suit the varying conditions of the cap- 
tious and exacting world, and where they devise how 
to catch the tide of good fortune and ride out upon the 
wave of popular applause, but, imitating the example 
of Romanism, it transgresses the laws of God, changes 
the ordinances, and breaks the everlasting covenant. 
(Isaiah xxiv, 5.) The Episcopal system, wherever 
found, whether in the Roman Catholic Missal, the 
Augsburg Confession of Faith, the Heidelberg Confes- 
sion of Faith, the Westminster Confession, or in the 



124 WESLEY NOT A METHODIST. 

Book of Prayer, or in the Methodist Discipline, recog- 
nizes infant church membership as the corner-stone of 
every pedobaptist edifice. And, setting aside immer- 
sion as practiced by the apostles, and which by the 
whole world of learning has been conceded to have 
been the exclusive practice of the Primitive Church, 
these innovators upon God's plan of salvation have 
substituted mutism and affusion; and they have the 
effrontery to tell the sinful world that sprinkling and 
pouring serve the same purpose as immersion, if " only 
the heart is right" — as if wicked men could have a 
heart right in the sight of God while rejecting the posi- 
tive commands of the Son of God ! And where did the 
" Mourning Bench " system of regeneration come from ? 
Why, it is hardly fifty years of age. President Finney, 
of Oberlin College, in his book on "Revivals," issued 
within the last thirty years, was the first man who had 
the courage to proclaim from the house-tops that the 
"mourning bench" was intended to take the place of 
baptism ! Viewed from the angle of apostolic teaching, 
we surely find no reformation in all this; on the other 
hand, we only see ^-formation. We find that the 
Methodist Discipline is but a modification of the Epis- 
copal Book of Prayer, and that the Book of Prayer is 
only a modification of the Roman Catholic Missal, 
which had its origin in the latter part of the fifth cen- 
tury. All these creed-formularies are but the product 
of the Dark Ages. 

The Episcopalian form of church government, whether 
found in the Romish Church, or in the Church of Eng- 
land, or in the Methodist Episcopal Church, or, if you 
please, in the Mormon Church, is to all intents and 
purposes a spiritual despotism, possessing not the least 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 125 

semblance to the apostolic order of things. Luther 
attempted to reform the Romish Church by striking at 
the rottenness of the Romish priesthood, and failed ; 
Zwingle also failed in the same direction ; Calvin 
attempted to reform the Romish Church by denouncing 
the false theological dogmas of that Church, and failed ; 
Knox, by herculean blows, undertook to reform the 
despotic government of the Church of Rome, and 
failed; Henry VIII. made a compromise between Roman- 
ism and Protestantism, and produced the Established 
Church of England; Wesley essayed to reform the 
Church of England, and produced — the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church ! It is utterly impossible to identify any 
of the so-called Protestant Churches with the Church of 
Christ as established by his apostles. Every one of 
them is defective, either in doctrine or in government ; 
and, being defective in some part, and therefore antag- 
onistic to the authority of Jesus Christ, we accept 
neither the one nor the other. Remove the Pope from 
the Romish Church, and the system falls to pieces, 
because the Papacy is the center of unity in that body. 
Remove Episcopacy from the Church of England, and 
that Church falls to pieces, because Episcopacy is its 
center of unity. Remove Episcopacy from the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church, and that ecclesiastical edifice falls 
into detached fragments, because the power which is 
lodged in the Twelve Bishops, and which power is 
exerted through the General Conference, denotes the 
center of unity in that body. What we propose is unity 
in Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church — the Head of 
the One Body And this unity never can be effected, 
if we must carry with us the trumpery of creeds and 
confessions, the ecclesiastical lumber of the Dark Ages, 



126 WESLEY NOT A METHODIST. 

the dogmas and traditions and speculations of fallible 
men. We must unload all these, and dump them into 
the mystic stream of Babylon, and let them forever dis- 
appear beneath the waves of dark oblivion. The sects 
of Christendom are all adrift because they do not make 
Christ the center of unity — because they do not "keep 
the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," and 
because they do not strive to bring all men "into the 
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto a perfect man, to the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ"; which all lovers of the truth 
should do, " that we henceforth be no more children, 
tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of 
doctrine, by the slight of men, and cunning craftiness, 
whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the 
truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which 
is the Head, even Christ ; from whom the whole body, 
fitly joined together, and compacted by the service of 
every joint [Macknight], according to its energy, in the 
proportion of each particular part, effects the increase 
of the body, for the edification of itself in love" (Ephe- 
sians iv. 14-16). 



THE REFORMATION OF THE NINETEENTH 
CENTURY. 



Thomas Campbell came from Scotland to the United 
States in May, 1807, and his son Alexander landed in 
New York, September 9, 1809. They both settled in 
Washington County, Pennsylvania When Thomas 
Campbell landed in Philadelphia, he found the Seceder 
Synod in session, and, upon presenting his credentials, 
he was cordially received, and at once assigned by this 
Synod to the Presbytery of Chartiers in Western Penn- 
sylvania. Both father and son were educated from 
childhood in the Westminster Confession of Faith. 

When the Campbells landed on the shores of Amer- 
ica, they found the various denominations in a deplor- 
able condition, and the Presbyterian "branches" were, 
if anything, more powerless, as spiritual agencies, than 
any other "branch of the Church." All around, as 
they viewed the religious horizon, and as they gazed 
upon broken ranks of fiery zealots, they saw nothing but 
dissension and disunion. Bigotry, party intolerance, 
and sectarian selfishness, were everywhere phenomenal 
of divided churches and of distracted members. Infi- 
delity — gross infidelity — was fattening and waxing wan 
ton on the spoils of an inglorious conquest. The aspect 
of religious affairs was dark and gloomy in the extreme. 
The great soul of Thomas Campbell was moved within 
him when he saw that the whole land was eriven over to 
the idolatrous worship of opinions, speculative theology, 

(127) 



128 THE REFORMATION OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

scholastic dogmas and men-made creeds, and to visions 
and dreams, and to mysticism and dreary superstition. 
He saw that where there is " no vision " — no divine rev- 
elation — the "people perish'' for want of spiritual food. 
In the fearfully distracted condition of things, he saw 
the immediate necessity of providing an antidote, and 
that antidote was to be found in pleading for Christian 
union, in making an effort to remove all barriers, and in 
a determination to unite all hearts, if possible, upon the 
Word of God, as the only solvent of an intolerable evil. 
While yet in Scotland, the Campbells, and especially 
Thomas (for Alexander was not yet out of his teens), 
were impressed with the necessity and desirability of 
discussing Christian union by an appeal to the Word of 
God, and this necessity and desirability was impressed 
upon his mind by the ' ' Haldanean Reformation" in 
that country — inaugurated by Robert and J. A. Haldane 
— and by reading the discussions of such eminent Inde- 
pendents as Archibald McLean, Alexander Carson, 
William Jones, David Dale and Greville Ewing. Simul- 
taneous with the movement of the Campbells in Wash- 
ington Countv, Pennsylvania, there was a similar 
movement in Kentucky, led by a man of pronounced 
abilities, Barton W. Stone, whose movement for reform 
was subsequently absorbed in the stronger movement 
of the Campbells. 

Thomas Campbell was witness to the severe contest, 
in the Old Country, between Presbyterian ism and Prel- 
acy, and was conversant with the history of the Covenant- 
ers, Seceders, Relief Church, Burghers, Anti-Burghers, 
Old and New Light Burghers and Anti-Burghers — all 
of which parties, in the right of private judgment and 
personal liberty, were trying to extricate themselves 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 2Q. 

from the thralldom of Romanism, and from the clutches 
of a proud and imperious Prelacy. There was a pande- 
monium of sectism at the time the Campbells attempted 
a reformation of the Seceder Church, in the Presbytery 
of Chartiers ; the Bible was a dead letter and inoperative 
among the people; the consciences of church commu- 
nicants were fettered with Creeds and Confessions of 
Faith; the masses were ignorant of the Word of God; 
the clergy seemed to be absolutely ignorant of the rules 
of Bible interpretation; the various sects were quarrel- 
ing and fighting over party shibboleths, and ungodly 
rivalry existed among the Protestant denominations ; 
a line of distinction was clearly marked between the 
" clergy and the laity " ; the denominations were all lost 
to the apostolic order of things. 

The Seceder congregations in Washington County 
were much pleased with the accession of Thomas Camp- 
bell to their ministry, to whom they became strongly 
attached. His high order of talents rendered him very 
popular among the people. Soon, however, suspicions 
began to arise in the minds of his ministerial brethren 
that he was too much disposed to relax the rigidness of 
their ecclesiastical rules, and to cherish for sister denom- 
inations feelings of good will and fraternity in which 
they were unwilling to share. They watched his move- 
ments with jaundiced eyes, and avoided him with ill- 
concealed feelings of envy, because he went among the 
destitute, who had for a long time been deprived of the 
ministrations of the gospel, and administered the Lord's 
Supper to other branches of the Presbyterian family. 
Mr. Wilson, a young minister, at tne first meeting of 
Presbytery, laid the case before it in the usual form of 
" libel," containing various formal and specified charges, 



130 THE REFORMATION OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the chief of which were that Mr. Campbell had failed to 
inculcate strict adherence to the church standard and 
usages, and that he had even expressed his disapproval 
of some things contained in said Standard. Placed 
upon the defensive, he was somewhat guarded and con- 
ciliatory in his replies. His pleadings in behalf of 
Christian liberty and common fraternity were in vain, 
and his appeals to the Bible were wholly disregarded ; 
and though he persisted that he had violated no precept 
of the Sacred Volume, the Presbytery finally found him 
deserving of censure for not adhering to the "Secession 
Testimony." Against this decision Thomas Campbell 
protested, and his case was, not long afterward, sub- 
mitted to the first meeting of the Synod. In the mean- 
time, he was apprised of the fact that many of his 
fellow-ministers had become inimical to him through the 
influence of those who conducted the prosecution ; and 
knowing well that it was impossible for him, with his 
views of the Bible, and of the right of private judgment, 
he clearly perceived that if the Synod should sanction 
the decision of the Presbytery, he must at once cease to 
be a minister in the Seceder branch of the Presbyterian 
f imily. Anxious to avoid a collision which might prove 
detrimental to his usefulness, and which might excite 
discord and alienation, and still cherishing the desire to 
co-operate with those with whom he had been so long 
associated, he addressed an earnest appeal to the Synod, 
which was to be presented to that august body at its 
first meeting. The appeal was addressed, "To the 
Associate Synod of North America." That the reader 
may judge of the animus of this "appeal," and get an 
idea of the incipient stages of the great reformatory 
movement which, in the course of time, was destined 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 13 I 

to shake the whole religious world, we make the follow- 
ing extract : 

It is, therefore, because I plead the cause of scrip ural and apostolic 
worship of the Church, in opposition to the various errors and schisms 
which have so awfully corrupted and divided it, that the brethren of 
the Union should feel it difficult to admit me as their fellow-laborer 
in that blessed work? I sincerely rejoice with them in what they have 
done in that way; but still, all is not yet done; and surely they can 
have no objections to go further. Nor do I presume to dictate to them 
or to others as to how they should proceed for the glorious purpose of 
promoting the unity and purity of the Church; but only beg leave, 
for my own part, to walk upon such pure and peaceable ground that I 
may have nothing to do with human controversy about the right or 
wrong side of any opinion whatsoever, by simply acquiescing in what 
is written, as quite sufficient for every purpose of faith and duty; and 
thereby to influence as many as possible to depart from human contro- 
versy, to betake themselves to the Scriptures, and, in so doing, to the 
study and practice of faith, holiness and love. And all this without 
any intention on my part to judge or despise my Christian brethren 
who may not see with my eyes in those things which, to me, appear 
indispensably necessary to promote and secure the unity, peace and 
purity of the Church. Say, brethren, what is my offense, that I 
should be thrust out from the heritage of the Lord, or from serving 
him in that good work to which he has been graciously pleased to call 
me? For what error or immorality ought I to be rejected, except it 
be that I refuse to acknowledge as obligatory upon myself, or to impose 
upon others, anything as of divine obligation for which I can not pro- 
duce a li Thus saith the Lord " ? This I am sure I can do, while I keep 
by his own word ; but not quite so sure when I substitute my own 
meaning or opinion, or that of others, instead thereof. 

In the same " appeal'' he says: "And I hope it is 
no presumption to believe that saying and doing the 
very same things that are said and done before our eyes 
on the sacred page, is infallibly right, as well as all 
sufficient for the edification of the Church, whose duty 
and perfection is to be in all things conformed to the 
original standard." After the reading of this protest, 
and the hearing of the case before the Synod, it was 



132 THE REFORMATION OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

decided that "there were such informalities in the pro- 
ceedings of the Presbytery in the trial of the case as to 
afford sufficient reason to the Synod to set aside their 
judgment and decision, and to release the protester 
from the censure inflicted by the Presbytery " — which 
they accordingly did. After this, the charges which 
had been before the Presbytery, with all the papers 
pertaining to the trial, were referred to a committee, 
who finally reported as follows: 

Upon the whole, the committee are of opinion that Mr. Campbell's 
answers to the two first articles of charge are so evasive and unsatis- 
factory, and highly equivocal upon great and important articles of 
revealed religion, as to give ground to conclude that he has expressed 
sentiments very different upon these articles, and from the sentiments 
held and professed by this Church, and a"re sufficient grounds to infer 
censure. 

fi From this extreme reluctance to separate from the 
Seceders, for many of whom, both preachers and people, 
he continued to cherish sentiments of Christian regard, 
Mr. Campbell was induced to submit to this decision, 
handing in at the same time a declaration 'that his sub- 
mission should be understood to mean no more, on his 
part, than an act of deference to the judgment of the 
court; that, by so doing, he might not give offense to 
his brethren by manifesting a refractory spirit.' After 
this concession, Mr. Campbell fondly hoped that the 
amicable relations formerly existing between him and 
the Presbytery of Chartiers would be restored, and that 
he would be permitted to prosecute his labors in peace. 
In this, however, he soon found himself mistaken, and 
discovered, with much regret, that the hostility of his 
opponents had been only intensified by the issue of the 
trial, and was more undisguised than ever. Misrepre- 
sentations and calumny were employed to detract from 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 133 

his influence ; a constant watch was placed over his 
proceedings, and he discovered that even spies were 
employed to attend his meetings, in order, if possible, 
to obtain fresh grounds of accusation against him." — 
Memoirs of A. Campbell, Vol. L, pp. 229-30. 

Forbearance, under such circumstances, finally ceased 
to be a Christian virtue, and, having a thousand times 
more reverence for the Word of God than for the selfish 
sectarian decrees of synods and presbyteries, his self 
respect compelled him to secede from the Seceders, and 
accordingly he presented to the Synod a formal renun- 
ciation of its authority, announcing that he now aban- 
doned "all ministerial connection" with it, and would 
hold himself thenceforth "utterly unaffected by its 
decisions." His withdrawal from the persecuting Sece- 
ders produced no interruption in his ministerial labors. 
Continuing to advocate toleration of private judgment 
and Christian union upon the basis of the Bible, the 
people in large numbers continued to follow him up, 
and to eagerly listen to his powerful pleas, wherever it 
was in his power to hold meetings — in school-houses, in 
maple groves, or in private houses. In view of the 
unsettled condition of religious affairs, and with a sin- 
cere desire to form a union upon the Bible alone, he 
proposed to the honest and conscientious persons oi the 
Presbyterian congregations that a special meeting should 
be held in order to an interchange of sentiments upon 
the existing state of things, and to give, if possible, 
more distinctness to the movement in which they had 
thus far been co-operating without any determinate 
arrangement. Up to this time, no separation from the 
religious denomina'ions had been contemplated — no 
separate bond of union had been suggested ; nor was 



134 THE REFORMATION OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

there the remotest allusion to the formation of a new 
religious party. On the contrary, Thomas Campbell 
only desired to abolish sectism, and he labored to induce 
the different religious denominations to unite upon the 
Bible as the only authorized rule of faith and practice. 
His heart sickened at the sight of partyism, and he 
urged, with all the energy of his great intellect, that all 
religious parties should desist from shameful controver- 
sies about matters of mere opinion and expediency. 
Having separated himself from the Seceder branch, Mr. 
Campbell was soon surrounded by a large number of 
godly and intelligent persons, who, like himself, were 
disheartened with the evils growing out of sectarian 
envy and rivalry, and who were willing to unite with 
him in an effort to make the Word of God the final 
appeal. 



ATTEMPTS AT REFORMATION. 



In our last chapter we made reference to a meeting 
called by Thomas Campbell, the specific object of 
which was to determine the course to be pursued by 
those who had separated themselves from the trammels 
of ecclesiasticism and from the domination of a persecu- 
ting Presbyterian priesthood, and from the deliberations 
of which meeting we date the origin of the plea for a 
return to apostolic teaching and practice. It is our 
purpose to acquaint our readers with the facts which 
gave rise to the reformatory movement of the nineteenth 
century, and to furnish the reasons of separation from 
all the ecclesiastical establishments of modern times. 
We have already traced out the origin of the Protestant 
sects, the origin of Protestant creedism, and have con- 
nectedly shown how one sect has grown out of another 
sect, and how one creed has succeeded another creed. 
When Thomas Campbell began his Reformation, or 
when he first made his attempt to reform the Seceder 
Church, in which he held membership, he found the 
religious world in universal chaos. He saw no way out 
of this chaos, and discovered no basis of Christian 
union, except in the abandonment of all creedism, and 
in a complete restoration of the apostolic order of 
things. 

The time for solemn consultation had arrived.' There 
was a large assembly of interested people, all of whom 
seemed to feel the importance of the occasion, and to 

(i35) 



I36 ATTEMPTS AT REFORMATION. 

realize the responsibilities of their new religious atti- 
tude. A deep feeling of solemnity pervaded the 
assembly. The divine guidance was invoked, every 
heart seemed to be filled with prayerful solicitude, and 
all seemed to seek for that wisdom which comes from 
above. Thomas Campbell rehearsed the great question 
from the" beginning. With unusual force he deplored 
the shameful existence of religious divisions, and mourned 
the desolations of Zion, and deprecated the ungodly 
rivalries of fighting sects. He called attention to the 
Word of God as the infallible standard of spiritual 
truth, and as an all-sufficient guide in the Christian life, 
and as furnishing the only basis of Christian union and 
co operation. He alluded to the departures that had 
been taken from the Sacred Volume, and how evil- 
minded men had substituted theories, speculations, opin- 
ions and human dogmas for the simplicity of the gospel 
of Christ, and how the Bible was set aside to make 
room for philosophical abstractions, and for all sorts of 
fancies and conceits. As the only means of removing 
all these evils, he insisted with great earnestness upon a 
radical return to the simple teachings of the Holy 
Scriptures, and for an entire rejection of everything in 
the Christian world for which there could not be pro- 
duced a divine warrant. Finally, after thoroughly 
reviewing the premises which he and his friends occu- 
pied in the proposed reformation, he proceeded to 
announce, in the most simple and emphatic terms, the 
great regulating principle or rule which was intended to 
be the accepted guide of their future actions. "That 
rule, my highly respected hearers," said he in conclu- 
sion, "is this: That where the Scriptures speak, we 



reformatory movemf.nts. 13/ 

speak; and where the Scriptures are silent, we are 

SILENT.'' 

Upon the enunciation of this supreme rule of action, 
a solemn silence pervaded the assembly, and thrilled 
with strange emotions every heart. They saw at a 
glance the vexatious problem solved, and in a manner 
so simple and rudimental that it appeared to them like 
a new revelation. Here now, at length, was an end put 
to all their doubts The path of duty was now made 
clear. Here was the solvent of all religious strife. 
Encouragement seized every heart, and joy lighted up 
every eye, because, from henceforth, they were to take 
God at his word, and from this time forth they were to 
rely exclusively upon apostolic precept and example. 
All religious teaching which consisted in remote infer- 
ences, fanciful interpretations, speculative theories, and 
in false rules of interpretation, was forever to be dis- 
carded — a consummation never attempted either by 
Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Wesley, or by any other Prot- 
estant reformer. Whatever private opinions men might 
entertain in regard to matters not clearly revealed must 
be reserved as private property, and must not be 
imposed .on any one as a test of loyalty and Christian 
fraternity. The silence of the Bible must be respected 
equally with its positive and unquestioned revelations, 
which, by divine authority, were declared to be able to 
"make the man of God perfect, and thoroughly fur- 
nished unto every good work." 

After Mr. Campbell finished h's remarkable address, 
he called upon those present for a free and candid 
expression of their views. After an interval of some 
considerable time, the dead silence was broken by a 
shrewd Scotch Seceder, Andrew Munro, a bookseller 



I 38 ATTEMPTS AT REFORMATION. 

and postmaster at Canonsburg, who arose and said : 
" Mr. Campbell, if we adopt that as a basis, then there 
is an end of infant baptism." This remark produced 
a profound sensation. "Of course," remarked Mr. 
Campbell, "if infant baptism be not found in Scripture, 
we can have nothing to do with it. " Upon this, Thomas 
Acheson, of Washington, arose, greatly excited, and, 
advancing a short distance, exclaimed, laying his hand 
upon his heart: "I hope I may never see the day when 
my heart will renounce that blessed saying of the Scrip- 
ture, ' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'" 
Upon saying this he was so much affected that he burst 
into tears, and while a deep, sympathetic feeling per- 
vaded the entire assembly, he was about to retire to an 
adjoining room, when James Fos'er, not willing that 
this misapplication of Scripture should pass unchal- 
lenged, cried out: " Mr. Acheson, I would remark that 
in the portion of Scripture you have quoted, there is no 
reference whatever to infant baptism." Without offering 
a reply, Mr. Acheson passed out to weep alone; "but 
this incident," says Professor Richardson, in his Memoirs 
of Alexander Campbell, "while it foreshadowed some of 
the trials which the future had in store, failed to abate, 
in the least, the confidence which the majority of those 
present placed in the principles to which they were 
committed. The rule which Mr. Campbell had 
announced seemed to cover the whole ground, and to 
be so obviously just and proper, that after further dis- 
cussion and conference, it was adopted with apparent 
unanimity, no valid objections being urged agains-t it." 






THE WORD OF GOD THE SOLE RULE OF 
ACTION. 



The rule of action adopted in that humble and 
obscure meeting was destined to revolutionize the relig- 
ious world. "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; 
where these are silent, we are silent" is a sentiment that 
not only reaches back to the days of the apostles, but 
one which reaches into the far future with consequences 
of good to the world that are beyond all human estimate. 
For the purpose of promoting Christian union and pro- 
ducing peace in the religious world, and in order to 
carry out this purpose more effectively, it was resolved, 
at a meeting held on the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, 
August 17, 1809, that this little party of reformers 
would form themselves into a regular association, to be 
known as "The Christian Association of Washington." 
They then appointed twenty-one of their number to 
meet and confer together, and, with the counsel of 
Thomas Campbell, to determine the proper method by 
which to consummate the object of the Association. 
Mr. Campbell prepared his Declaration and Address, 
the object of which was not to formulate a new creed, 
but to set forth in a perspicuous and forcible manner 
the object of the movement in which he and those asso- 
ciated with him were enlisted. At a called and special 
meeting he read the document in the presence of his 
brethren, that it -might be approved and adopted by 
them. Having been unanimously adopted as an expo- 

(139) 






I4O THE WORD OF GOD THE SOLE RULE OF ACTION. 

nent of their pronounced principles, it was at once 
ordered to be printed, which was done September 7, 
1809. We quote as follows from this ^Declaration" ; 
of the far-reaching consequences of the principles which 
the document contained, neither Thomas Campbell nor 
his associates had a full conception : 

Our desire, therefore, for ourselves and our brethren would be, that, 
rejecting human opinions and the inventions of men, as of any author- 
ity, or as having any place in the Church of God, we might forever 
^•ease from further contentions about sucli things, returning to and 
holding fast by the original standard, taking the Divine Word alone 
for our rule, the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide to lead us into 
all truth, and Christ alone as exhibited in the Word for our salvation ; 
and that by so doing we may be at peace among ourselves, follow 
peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the 
Lord. Impressed with these sentiments, we have resolved as follows : 

'• I. That we form ourselves into a religious association, under the 
denomination of "The Christian Association of Washington," for the 
sole purpose of promoting simple, evangelical Christianity, free from 
all mixture of human opinion-! and inventions of men. 

"II. That each member, according to his ability, cheerfully and 
liberally subscribe a specified sum, to be paid half-yearly, for the pur- 
pose of raising a fund to support a pure gospel ministry, that shall 
reduce to practice that whole form of doctrine, worship, discipline and 
government expressly revealed and enjoined in the Word of God ; 
and also for supplying the poor with the Holy Scriptures. 

"III. That this Society consider it a duty, and s'lall use all proper 
means within its power, to encourage the formation of similar associa- 
tions ; and shall, for this purpose, hold itself in readiness, upon appli- 
cation, to correspond with and render all possible assistance to such as 
may desire to associate for the same desirable and important purposes. 

"IV. That this Society by no means considers itself a Church, nor 
does at all assume to itself the powers peculiar to such a society ; nor 
do the members, as such, consider themselves as standing connected in 
that relation ; nor as at all associated for the peculiar purposes of 
Church association, but merely as voluntary advocates for Church 
reformation, and as possessing the powers common to all individuals 
who may please to associate, in a peaceful and orderly manner, for 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I4I 

any lawful purpose — namely, the disposal of their time, counsel and 
property, as they may see cause. 

"V. That this Society, formed for the sole purpose of promoting 
simple, evangelical Christianity, shall to the utmost of its power, 
countenance and support such ministers, and such only, as exhibit a 
manifest conformity to the original standard, in conversation and doc- 
trine, in zeal and diligence ; only such as reduce to practice that 
simple, original form of Christianity expressly exhibited upon the 
Sacred Page, without attempting to inculcate anything of human 
authority, of private opinion, or inventions of men, as having place in 
the constitution, faith or worship of the Christian Church, or anything 
as matter of Christian faith or duty, for which there can not be 
expressly produced a ' Thus saith the Lord ! '* either in express terms 
or by approved precedent." 

By the wording of the foregoing statement of prin- 
ciples it will be seen that the Association did not at all 
regard itself as a Church, or publish these statements as 
the articles of a creed, but simply to publish to the 
world their desire to urge "a pure evangelical reforma- 
tion, by the simple preaching of the gospel, and the 
administration of its ordinances in exact conformity to 
the divine standard." Thomas Campbell wrote his 
Declaration and Address in the very midst of a paradise 
of religious partyism, and while sectarian rancor and 
hatred and jealousy were consuming what little piety 
and spirituality were left in the country. tl Each party 
strove for supremacy, and rmintained its peculiarities 
with a zeal as ardent and persecuting as the laws of the 
land and the usages of society would permit. The dis- 
tinguishing tenets of each party were constantly thun- 
dered from every pulpit, and any departure from the 
'traditions of the elders' was visited at once with the 
severest ecclesiastical censure. Covenanting, church 
politics, church psalmody, hyper-Calvinistic questions, 
were the great topics of the day ; and such was the 



142 THE WORD OF GOD THE SOLE RULE OF ACTION. 

rigid, uncompromising spirit prevailing, that the most 
trivial things would produce a schism, so that old mem- 
bers were known to break off from their congregations 
simply because the clerk presumed to give out before 
singing two lines of a psalm instead of one, as had been 
the usual custom. Against this slavish subjection to 
custom, and to opinions and regulations that were 
merely of human origin, Mr. Campbell had long felt it 
his duty to protest ; and knowing no remedy for the sad 
condition of things existing, except in a simple return 
to the plain teachings of the Bible, as alone authorita- 
tive and binding upon the consience, he and those 
associated with him felt it incumbent upon them to urge 
this upon religious society. This they endeavored to 
do in the spirit of moderation and Christian love, hop- 
ing that the overture would be accepted by the religious 
communities around, especially by those of the Presby- 
terian order, whose differences were, in themselves, so 
trivial." — Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Vol. L, 
p. 245. 

This, in brief, was the religious complexion of things 
when Alexander Campbell appeared upon the stage of 
action, who in the providence of God was destined to 
become the chosen and distinguished promulgator of 
the reformatory principles enunciated by his illustrious 
father. Up to the period when Alexander Campbell 
comes to the front, Thomas Campbell is still a Presby- 
terian in faith, but a free and independent thinker. 
While advocating Christian union upon the basis of the 
Bible, he still continues to baptize infants. He still 
continues to be trammeled by the dogmas of Calvinism, 
and to struggle in the meshes of ecclesiasticism, but, 
having placed himself upon the solid ground of honest 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I43 

Bible exegesis, and having adopted an infallible rule of 
Scripture interpretation, we shall soon see how his prin- 
ciple drove him, and his Presbyterian son, Alexander, 
back upon apostolic ground, and hew the God of truth 
guided their feet in a way they knew not. 



ATTEMPTS AT CHRISTIAN UNION. 



While Alexander Campbell was reading the proof- 
sheets of the "Declaration," in 1809, soon after his 
arrival in Washington from Scotland, he observed to 
his father: "Then, sir, you must abandon and give up 
infant baptism, and some other practices for which it 
seems to me you can not produce an express precept or 
an example in any book of the Christian Scriptures." 
To which, after some hesitancy, the father responded: 
"'To the law and to the testimony' we make our 
appeal. If not found therein, we, of course, must 
abandon it." Then, as showing the perplexed condi- 
tion of his mind, he added: " We could not unchurch 
ourselves now, and go out into the world, and then turn 
back again and enter the Church merely for the sake 
of form and decorum." When, in an accidental con- 
versation with Rev. Mr. Riddle, of the Presbyterian 
Church Union, the principles of the " Declaration and 
Address" were introduced as matters of discussion, Mr. 
Alexander referred to the proposition that "nothing 
should be required as a matter of faith or duty for which 
a 'Thus saith the Lord' could not be produced, either 
in express terms or by approved precedent." "Sir," 
said Mr. Riddle, "these words, however plausible in 
appearance, are not sound. For if you follow these 
out, you must become a Baptist." "Why, sir," said 
the young Alexander, "is there in the Scriptures no 
express precept nor precedent for infant baptism ? " 

(144) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 145 

The youthful inquirer was startled and chagrined that 
he could not produce one ; and forthwith he appealed to 
Andrew Munro, the principal bookseller in Canonsburg, 
to furnish him all the treatises at his command in favor 
of infant baptism. He inquired for no Xvorks on the 
other side of the question, for at this time he had little 
or no acquaintance with the Baptists, and regarded 
them as a people comparatively ignorant and unedu- 
cated. He was thrown into a state of doubt and per- 
plexity by pondering this law of scriptural exegesis as 
previously announced by his father: "We make our 
appeal to the law and to the testimony. Whatever is 
not found therein, we, of course, must abandon." He 
read the pedobaptist authorities in ardent hopes of for- 
tifying his mind in favor of infant baptism. The more 
he investigated, the more his prejudices and predilec- 
tions gave way, and the conviction gradually grew upon 
him that infant baptism was a human device. Thor- 
oughly disgusted with the bald assumptions and fallacious 
reasonings of the pedobaptist authorities, he threw them 
all aside, and fled hopefully to the Greek New Testa- 
ment in the fond expectation of finding convincing 
proof of the validity of infant baptism in the fountain- 
head. But the plainness of the Greek text only served 
to strengthen his doubts. And when again he entered 
into a conversation with his father on this vexed ques- 
tion, he found him entirely willing to admit that there 
were neither "express terms'' nor "precedent" to 
authorize the practice "But," said he, " as for those 
who are already members of the Church and partici- 
pants of the Lord's Supper, I can see no propriety, 
even if the scriptural evidence for infant baptism be 
found deficient, in their unchurching or paganizing 
ii 



I46 ATTEMPTS AT CHRISTIAN UNION. 

themselves, or in putting off Christ, merely for the 
sake of making a new profession ; and thus going out 
of the Church merely for the sake of coming in again." 
By these continued discussions it will be perceived 
that a serious conflict was going on in the minds of these 
two men, and especially in the mind of the son, as to 
the question whether it were better, all things consid 
ered, to adhere to Presbyterian usages and to the 
" traditions of the fathers," or, enlightened by the Word 
of God, carry out the logic of their own rules of Bible 
interpretation. Being thoroughly honest men, and 
seeking only to know the truth, and, above all, desiring 
to effect Christian union exclusively upon the basis of 
the Bible, they determined to take the Word of God as 
their sole and infallible guide. The " Declaration and 
Address " contains the following sentiments, as illustra- 
tive of the religious condition of things then existing: 

What dreary effects of those accursed divisions are to be seen, even 
in this highly favored country, where the sword of the civil magistrate 
has not yet learned to serve at the altar ! Have we not seen congrega- 
tions broken to pieces, neighborhoods of professing Christians first 
thrown into confusion by party contentions, and, in the end, entirely 
deprived of gospel ordinances ; while, in the meanwhile, large settle- 
ments and tracts of country remain to this day destitute of a gospel 
ministry, many of them in little better than a state of heathenism, the 
churches being either so weakened by divisions that they can not send 
them ministers, or the people so divided among themselves that thev 
will not receive them ? Several, at the same time, who live at the 
door of a preached gospel, dare not in conscience go to hear it. and, 
of course, enjoy little more advantage in that respect than living in 
the midst of heathen. 

Not discouraged by the small progress made toward 
Christian union, and not dismayed by the powerful 
opposition he encountered from his former Presbyterian 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 147 

brethren, he thus, from time to time, addresses his little 
band : 

Dearly beloved brethren, why should we deem it a thing incredible 
that the Church of Christ, in this highly favored country, should 
resume that original unity, peace and purity which belong to its con- 
stitution and constitute its glory ? Or is there anything that can be 
justly deemed necessary for this desirable purpose but to conform to 
the model and adopt the practice of the primitive Church, expressly 
exhibited in the New Testament ? Whatever alterations this might 
produce in any or in all of the churches, should, we think, neither be 
deemed inadmissible nor ineligible. Surely such alteration would be 
every way for the better and not for the worse, unless we should sup- 
pose the divinely-inspired rule to be faulty or defective. Were we, 
then, in our church constitution and management, to exhibit a com- 
plete conformity to the apostolic Church, would we not be in that 
respect as perfect as Christ intended us to be ? And should not this 
suffice us ? 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 



Just before submitting his thirteen propositions to 
his brethren and to the religious world, with a view of 
drawing the people away from strife and contention, 
and in order to fix their minds upon the liberty of the 
gospel with which Christ makes all willing men free, he 
says: ''Let us not imagine that the subjoined proposi- 
tions are at all intended as an overture toward a new 
creed or standard for the Church, or as in any way 
designed to be made a term of communion ; nothing 
can be further from our intention. They are merely 
designed to open up the way, that we may come fairly 
and firmly to original ground upon clear and certain 
premises, and take up things just as the apostles left 
them ; and thus, disentangled from the accruing embar- 
rassments of intervening ages, we may stand with evi- 
dence upon the same ground on whicli the Church stood 
at the beginning." 

Here indeed was the beginning of radical work. Here 
was a proposition to pass back over all human author- 
ities, over all the traditions and false dogmas of "inter- 
vening ,ages," and begin a thorough restoration of the 
ancient order of things. Neither Luther nor any one 
else since his day ever attempted such a revolution. 
Thomas Campbell proposed to set aside the decrees of 
popes, councils, synods, conferences and general assem- 
blies, and to ignore all the traditions and corrupt prac- 
tices of an apostate Church, and to build upon Christ 

(148) 



I 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 149 

alone. Here was an invitation to come directly to the 
primitive model — to return to pristine purity and perfec- 
tion — and, consentaneous with that act, the rejection of 
all human innovations, and the repudiation of all human 
authority. It seems as though God guided and guarded 
the hand that penned such grand and startling proposi- 
tions 

What a mighty revolution have these propositions 
wrought within the last half century. The thoughts 
contained in these propositions have changed and modi- 
fied the theology of the entire religious world, have 
influenced every pulpit, have changed the tone of every 
religious journal, and still continue to challenge investi- 
gation. As the propositions referred to are not access- 
ible to many of our readers, we think we are rendering 
valuable service by reproducing several, if not all, of 
them in this connection. 

Proposition 1. That the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, 
intentionally and constitutionally one ; consisting of all those in every- 
place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all 
things according to the Scriptures, and that manifest the same by their 
tempers and conduct; and none else, as none else can be truly and 
properly called Christians. 

2. That, although the Church of Christ upon earth must necessarily 
exist in particular and distinct societies, locally separate one from the 
other, yet there ought to be no schisms, no uncharitable divisions 
among them. They ought to receive each other, as Jesus Christ hath 
also received them, to the glory of God. And, for this purpose, they 
ought all to walk by the same rule ; to mind and speak the same things, and 
to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same 
judgment. 

3. That, in order to this, nothing ought to be inculcated upon 
Christians as articles of faith, nor required of them as terms of com- 
munion, but what is expressly taught and enjoined upon them in the Word 
of God. Nor ought anything to be admitted as of divine obligation in 
their Church constitution and managements, but what is expressly 



150 FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 

enjoined by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles upon 
the New Testament Church, either in express terms or by approved pre- 
cedent. 

4. That, although the Old and New Testaments are inseparably- 
connected, making together but one perfect and entire revelation of 
the divine will for the edihcation and salvation of the Church, and, 
therefore, in that respect can not be separated ; yet, as to what directly 
and properly belongs to their immediate object, the New Testament is as 
perfect a constitution for the worship, discipline and government of the New 
Testament Church, and as perfect a rule for the particular duties of its 
members, as the Old Testament was for the worship, discipline and 
government of the Old Testament Church and the particular duties of 
its members. 

5. That with respect to commands and ordinances of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, where the Scriptures are silent as to the express time or 
manner of performance, if any such there be, no human authority has 
power to interfere in order to supply the supposed deficiency by making laws 
for the Church, nor can anything more be required of Christians in such 
cases but only that they so observe these commands and ordinances as 
will evidently answer the declared and obvious ends of their institu- 
tion. Much less has any human authority power to impose new com- 
mands or ordinances upon the Church, which our Lord Jesus Christ 
has not enjoined. Nothing ought to be received into the faith or worship 
of the Church, or be made a term of communion among Christians, 
that is not as old as the New 'Testament. 

(J. That although inferences and deductions from Scripture prem- 
ises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of God's 
Holy Word, yet are they not formally binding upon the consciences of 
Christians further than they perceive the connection, and evidently 
see they are so, for their faith must not stand in the wisdom of men, 
but in the power and veracity of God. Therefore no such deductions 
can be made terms of communion, but do properly belong to the after 
and progressive edification of the Church. Hence, it is evident that 
no such deductions or inferential truths ought to have any place in the 
Church's Confession. 

Proposition 12 reads as follows: 

That all that is necessary to the highest state of perfection and purity 
of the Church upon earth is, first, that none be received as members 
but such as, having that due measure of scriptural self-knowledge 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 15 I 

described above, da profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him 
in all things according to the Scriptures ; nor, secondly, that any be 
retained in her communion longer than they continue to manifest the 
reality of their profession by temper and conduct. Thirdly, that her 
ministers, duly and scripturally qualified, inculcate none other things 
than those very articles of faith and holiness expressly revealed and 
enjoined in the Word of God. Lastly, that in all their administrations 
they keep close by the observance of all divine ordinances, after the 
example of the primitive Church, exhibited in the New Testament, without any 
additions whatsoever of human opinions or inventions of men. 

We have italicized certain phrases in these proposi- 
tions, in order to enlist the special attention of our read- 
ers. The sentiments contained in these propositions 
are the sentiments that we have persistently urged in 
the past. These sublime statements constitute no 
creed, but they simply indicate the fixed purpose of the 
author, which is also our fixed purpose, viz.: the com- 
plete restoration of the primitive order of things, in 
commands, precepts, ordinances, worship and discipline. 



THE RESTORATION. 



In defending- his thirteen propositions against the 
heated assaults of his Presbyterian ministerial brethren, 
who tried in every possible way to inveigle him in self- 
contradictions and inconsistencies, Thomas Campbell 
sought to draw a distinction between faith and opinion, 
between an express scriptural declaration and inferences 
which may be deduced from it. By the latter were 
meant such conclusions as were not necessarily involved 
in the Scripture premises, and which were to be regard' d 
as private opinions, and not to be made a rule of faith 
or duty to any one. In order to obtain the true mean- 
ing of Scripture, "the whole revelation was to be taken 
together, or in its due connection upon every article, 
and not on any detached sentence." If, in consequence 
of thus allowing full freedom of opinion, any should 
bring forward the charge of latitudinarianism, they are 
requested to consider whether this charge does not lie 
against those who add their opinions to the Word of 
God, rather than against those who insist upon return: 
ing to the profession and practice of the primitive 
Church. A return to the Bible, he insisted, was the 
only way to get rid of existing sectarian evils. He goes 
on to say that " a manifest attachment to our Lord Jesus 
Christ in faith, holiness and charity, was the original 
criterion of Christian character — the distinguishing 
badge of our holy profession — the foundation and 
cement of Christian unity. But now, alas! and long 

(152) 



r 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 153 

since, an external name, a mere educational formality 
of sameness in the profession of a certain standard or 
formula of human fabric, with a very moderate degree 
of what is called morality, forms the bend and founda- 
tion, the root and reason of ecclesiastical unity. " Thomas 
Campbell speaks like an oracle, as he continues his 
arraignment of the hypocritical clergy of his day, of 
whom we find a counterpart in the present day. What 
was then true of the clerical profession is still true. 
"Can an Ethiopian change his skin, or a leopard his 
spots?" Referring to those who love the creed above 
the Bible, and who prefer leadership in sectarian divi- 
sion to the unity of hearts in Christ, he says: 

Take from such the technicalities of their profession, the shibboleth 
of party, and what have they more? What have they left to distin- 
guish and hold them together? As to the Bible, they are little 
beholden to it ; they have learned little from it, they know little about 
it, and therefore depend as little upon it. Nay, they will even tell 
you it would be of little use to them without their formula ; they could 
not know a Papist from a Protestant by it; that merely by it they 
could neither keep the Church nor themselves right for a single week. 
You might preach to them what you please, they could not distinguish 
truth from error. Poor people ! it is no wonder they are so fond of 
their formula. Therefore uVy that exercise authority upon them, 
and tell them what they are to believe and what they are to do, are 
called benefactors. Thes? are the reverend and right reverend 
authors, upon whom they can and do place a more implicit confidence 
than upon the holy apostles and prophets. These plain, honest, unas- 
suming men, who would never venture to say or do anything in the 
name of the Lord without an express revelation from heaven, and, 
therefore, were never distinguished by the venirable title of " Rabbi" 
or "Reverend,'' but just simply Paul, John, Thomas, etc. — thexe were 
but servants. They did not assom^ to legislate, and, therefore, 
neither assumed nor received any honorary titles among men, but 
merely such as were descriptive of their office. And how, we beseech 
you, shall this gross and prevalent corruption be pur» d cut of the 
visible professing Church but by a radical reform \>ut by a returning 



154 'fHE RESTORATION. 

to the original simplicity, the primitive purity of the Christian institu- 
tion, and, of course, taking up things just as we find them upon the 
sacred page? And who is there that knows anything of the present 
state of the Church, who does not perceive that it is generally overrun 
with the aforesaid evils? Or who, that reads his Bible, and receives 
the impressions it must necessarily produce upon the receptive mind 
by the statements it exhibits, does not perceive that such a state of 
things is as distinct from genuine Christianity as oil is from water? 

In opposition to the claim made that a creed secures 
uniformity of belief and purity of doctrine, history 
attests that Arians, Socinians, Arminians, Calvinists 
and Antinomians have existed under the Westminster 
Confession, and under the Athanasian Creed or the 
Articles of the Church of England. 

"Will any one say,'' it is asked, "that a person might not with 
equal ease, honesty and consistency, be an Arian or a Socinian in his 
heart while subscribing to the Westminster Confession or the Athana- 
sian Creed, as while making his unqualified profession to believe 
everything that the Seripuires declare concerning Christ? — to put all 
that confidence in him, and to ascribe all that glory, honor and 
thanksgiving and praise to him professed and ascribed to him in the 
Divine Word? If you say not, it follows, of undeniable consequence, 
that the wisdom of men, in those compilations, has effected what the 
divine wisdom either could not, would not, or did not do in that all 
perfect and glorious revelation of his will contained in the Holy Scrip- 
tures. Happy emendation ! Blessed expedient ! Happy, indeed, 
for the Church that Athanasius arose in the fourth century to perfect 
what the apostles had left in such a crude and unfinished state! But 
if, after all, the divine wisdom did not think proper to do anything 
more, or anything else, than is already done in the Sacred Oracles, to 
settle and determine those important points, who can say that he deter- 
mined such a thing as should be done afterward ? Or has he anywhere 
given us any intimation of such an intention ? " 

In regard to the charge of an intention to make a 
new party, Thomas Campbell said, in further defense of 
his Thirteen Propositions: " If the Divine Word be not 
the standard of a party, then we are not a party, for we 



I 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 55 

have adopted no other. If to maintain its alone-suffi- 
ciency be not a party principle, then we are not a party. 
If to justify this principle by our practice in making a 
rule of it, and of it alone, and not of our own opinions, 
nor those of others, be not a party principle, then we 
are not a party. If to propose and practice neither 
more nor less than it expressly reveals and enjoins be 
not a partial business, then we are not a party. These 
are the very sentiments we have approved and recom- 
mended, as a society formed for the express purpose 
of promoting Christian unity in opposition to a party 
spirit." 

We have thus quoted copiously from the writings of 
Thomas Campbell, while he was yet a Presbyterian in 
name, if not in faith, to give our readers a clear concep- 
tion of the origin of the so-called " Reformation " of the 
nineteenth century, and to show also that the plea we 
are now making in favor of a complete restoration of 
primitive Christianity is based upon the principles con- 
tained in that remarkable document styled the "Decla- 
ration and Address." Says Dr. Richardson, in his 
Memoirs of Alexander Campbell: "So fully and so 
kindly was every possible objection considered and 
refuted, that no attempt was ever mad- by the opposers of 
the proposed movement to controvert directly a single position 
ivliich it contained." Says the same biographer: "To 
all the propositions and reasonings of this Address, 
Alexander Campbell gave at once his hearty approba- 
tion, as they expressed most clearly the convictions to 
which he had himself been brought by his experience 
and observation in Scotland, and his reflections upon 
the state of religious society at large. Captivated by its 
clear and decisive presentations of duty, and the noble 



r 5^ THE RESTORATION. 

Christian enterprise to which it invited, he at once, 
though unprovided with worldly property, and aware 
that the proposed reformation would, in all probability, 
provoke the hostility of the religious parties, resolved to 
consecrate his life to the advocacy of the principles 
which it presented. Accordingly, when, soon after- 
ward, his father took occasion to inquire as to his 
arrangements for the future, he at once informed him 
that he had determined to devote himself to the dissem- 
ination and support of the principles and views presented 
in the "Declaration and Address." 

Thomas Campbell, having been solicited both by pri- 
vate members and by some of the ministers of the Pres- 
byterian Church, to form an ecclesiastical union with 
them, and having been assured by certain Presbyterian 
ministers that the Presbytery generally would willingly 
receive him and the members of the Christian Associa- 
tion upon the principles they advocated, made overtures 
looking to that end, in the fond hope that by operating 
through the Presbyterian Church and its various agencies 
he might be enabled to advance more effectively the 
cause of Christian union. Alexander had little confi- 
dence that his father would succeed in propitiating the 
excited spirit of the Presbyterians, who stood more upon 
their ecclesiastical dignity than upon their love of Chris 
tian union. The " Synod of Pittsburg" assembled at 
Washington, Pennsylvania, on the 2d day of October, 
18 10. This august body refused to receive the reformer 
into their body. The grounds of their objection, it 
appears, were the fears they entertained in regard to the 
influence of the Christian Association, which, as before 
stated, was organized with the sole view of promoting 
Christian union. And it is a noteworthy fact that the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 157 

Presbyterians have not, since that day, cultivated the 
least disposition for Christian union, upon the basis of 
the Bible or upon any other basis. In his address 
before the Synod, Mr. Campbell was careful to define 
clearly the position which the society occupied, and to 
state that it was in no sense a church, but simply a soci- 
ety organized for the promotion of Christian unity He 
earnestly and affectionately proposed to the Synod to 
be obedient to it in all things that the gospel and the 
law of Christ inculcated, only desiring to be permitted 
to advocate that sacred unity which Christ and his apos- 
tles expressly enjoined ; or,- in other words, that the 
Synod would consent to "Christian union upon Chris- 
tian principle's." The Synod rejected his overtures 
because he would not unite with them on Presbyterian 
principles. 



THE BIBLE THE ONLY CREED. 



When Thomas Campbell, from a sense of duty, made 
his second appeal to the same Synod which had in the 
first instance replied to him in very ambiguous terms, 
and asked for an explanation oi the clause, '* many other 
important reasons," by which the Synod attempted to 
justify its action, this grave body of ecclesiastics found 
one of them in the childish and frivolous pretext that 
his son Alexander had been allowed to exercise his 
gift of public speaking "without any regular author- 
ity," or before ordination — a liberty taken both by Knox 
and Calvin, and one frequently granted to theological 
students. The unrighteousness of the rejection of the 
application of Thomas Campbell is made manifest by 
the fact that the Confession of Faith, under which the 
Synod acted, declares the Bible to be the only rule of 
faith and practice; and yet, when a respectable body of 
Christian people ask for admission they are ruled out — 
cashiered — because they will come under no other rule 
than the Bible! For adhering to the "only rule" 
admitted to be inspired and infallible, and for presuming 
to doubt the infallibility of the Westminster Confession 
— the production of uninspired men — they are rejected ; 
rejected, not for any violation of the "only rule," but 
because they can not admit that a human creed or con- 
fession is in reality the i( only rule." Says Dr. Richard- 
son, in his Memoirs of Alexander Campbell: "How 
completely this verified the remark made by Mr. Camp- 

(158) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 59 

bell in his Declaration and Address, i That a book- 
adopted by any party as its standard for all matters ot 
doctrine, worship, discipline and government, must be 
considered as the Bible of that party ! ' And how evi- 
dent it is that, in the sectarian world, there are just as 
many different Bibles as there are different and authori- 
tative explanations of the Bible, called creeds and con- 
fessions ! In the case of Thomas Campbell, it was the 
' Confession, ' and not the Bible, that was made the 
standard by which one of the best ren was denied 
religious fellowship." Is it possible for sectarian bigotry 
to go beyond this ? 

Alexander Campbell, at the age of twenty-two, now 
comes forward, enters the arena of public conflict, 
reviews the action of this Synod, and not only justifies 
the course pursued by his father, but takes more 
advanced ground than that occupied by his father. 
The Christian Association of Washington held its semi- 
annual meeting at Washington on Thursday, the ist of 
November, 1810. Alexander, the young polemic, was 
not made of such stuff as to tamely submit to the pro- 
ceedings of the Synod in relation to his father and the 
Christian Association, and he therefore resolved to avail 
himself of the first opportunity to examine them pub- 
licly. We have not space for the reproduction of this 
masterly review. As to the views entertained at this 
time by Alexander Campbell and his father, it appears 
from the contents of the address delivered on the occa- 
sion referred to, (1) that they regarded the religious 
parties around them as possessing the substance of Chris- 
tianity, v but as having failed to* preserve "the form of 
sound words " in which it was proclaimed in apostolic 
days ; and that the chief object in the proposed reforma- 



IOO THE BIBLE THE ONLY CREED. . 

tion was an effort to induce all good people to abandon 
every human system, and persuade them to the adoption 
of "this form of sound words," as the infallible basis of 
Christian union. (2) That they regarded each congre- 
gation as an independent organization, enjoying its own 
individuality, and maintaining its own internal govern- 
ment by elders and deacons, and yet not so absolutely 
independent of other congregations as not to be bound 
to them by fraternal and spiritual relations. (3) That 
they considered "lay preaching" as authorized, and 
denied the distinction between clergy and laity to be 
scriptural. (4) That they looked upon infant baptisn 
as without direct scriptural authority, but that they 
were willing to let it rest as a matter of forbearance, and 
allow the continuance of the practice in the case of those 
who conscientiously approved it, as Paul and Jame.s 
permitted circumcision for a time in deference to Jewish 
prejudices. (5) That they clearly anticipated the prob- 
ability of being compelled, on account of the refusal of 
the religious parties to accept their overture, to resolve 
the Christian Association into a distinct church, in 
order to carry out for themselves the duties and obliga^ 
tions enjoined on them in the Scriptures. (6) That in 
receiving nothing but what was expressly revealed, they 
foresaw and admitted that many things deemed precious 
and important by the existing religious societies must 
inevitably be excluded. 

Where, among all the existing sects, do you find such 
sentiments uttered as were uttered by Thomas Camp- 
bell ? Is there one prominent man among any of the 
denominations, at this time, who proposes such meas- 
ures of reform as were instituted by Thomas Campbell? 
Do you hear any of our Protestant divines talk as he 



' 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. l6t 

talked, and do you see any of them labor as he labored, 
to crush out sectarianism and to purify the Church of all 
tradition? Do you find one Protestant minister among 
ten thousand ministers making the least plea for Chris- 
tian union upon the basis of the Bible? Not one. 
Intellectually and morally, in comparison with Thomas 
Campbell, they are all pigmies. 



ALEXANDER CAMPBELL ABANDONS 
SECTARIANISM. 



Up to March, 1812, when the first child of Alexander 
Campbell was born, the question of infant baptism had 
not given him much concern; it had not become to him 
a question of practical interest. Up to this period, the 
unity of the Church, and the overthrow of sectarianism, 
and the restoration of the Bible to its original position, 
had chiefly engaged his attention. In comparison with 
these objects, the question of baptism was one of small 
importance, and, hence, neither himself nor his father 
entertained any decided convictions upon this subject. 
About a year before the time we are speaking of, in a 
sermon founded on Mark xvi. 15-16, he said: "As I 
am sure it is unscriptural to make this matter a term of 
communion, I let it slip. I wish to think and let others 
think on these matters." But the unqualified adoption 
of the principle, "Where the Bible speaks, ive speak; 
wJiere the Bible is silent, we are silent," began to press 
upon him, and upon those who attended the Brush Run 
Church, where the question of baptism was beginning 
to be discussed as one of considerable importance. The 
reading and investigation of the great commission which 
Christ gave to his apostles began to give him serious 
concern. Admitting that infant baptism was without 
divine warrant, the question began to assume quite a 
different aspect, and was now no longer, "May we 
safely reject infant baptism as a human invention ? " but 

(162) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 63 

4 'May we omit believers baptism, which all admit to be 
divinely commanded?" He began to be troubled with 
the question, "If the baptism of infants be without 
divine warrant, it is invalid, and they who receive it are, 
in point of fact, still unbaptized. When they come to 
know this in after-years, will God accept the credulity 
of the parent for the faith of the child ? Men may be 
pleased to omit faith on the part of the person baptized, 
but will God sanction the omission of baptism on the 
part of the believer, on the ground that in his infancy 
he had been the subject of a ceremony which had not 
been enjoined? On the other hand, if the practice of 
infant baptism can be justified by inferential reasoning or 
any sufficient evidence, why should it not be adopted or 
continued by common consent, without further discus- 
sion? " 

Such were some of the reasonings which, at this time, 
pressed heavily upon the clear mind and honest heart 
of the youthful Alexander Campbell. Having finally 
abandoned all uninspired authorities, he began a critical 
examination of the words rendered baptism and baptize 
in the original Greek, and, as a result of his research, 
he became thoroughly satisfied that they could mean 
only immersion and immerse. Further investigation led 
him to the clear and indisputable conviction that believ- 
ers, and believers only, are proper scriptural subjects of 
baptism. The searching investigations he instituted led 
him to perceive that the rite of sprinkling, to which he 
had been subjected in infancy, was wholly unauthorized, 
and that consequently he was, in point of fact, an unbap- 
tized person, and hence could not, consistently, preach 
a baptism to others of which he himself had never been 
a subject. Concerning the immersion of Alexander 



164 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL ABANDONS SECTARIANISM. 

Campbell and others, we quote the following interesting 
narrative from the Memoirs of Alexander Campbell: 

As he was not one who could remain long without carrying out his 
convictions of duty, he resolved at once to obey what he now, in the 
light of the Scriptures, found to be a positive divine command. Hav- 
ing formed some acquaintance with a Matthias Luce, a Baptist 
preacher who lived above Washington, he concluded to make applica- 
tion to him to perform the rite, and, on his way to visit him, called to 
see his father and the family, who were then living on a little farm 
between Washington and Mt. Pleasant. Soon after arriving, his sister 
Dorothea took him aside and told him that she had been in great 
trouble for some time about her baptism. She could find, she said, no 
authority whatever for infant baptism, and could not resist the convic- 
tion that she never had be.m scripturally baptized. She wished him, 
therefore, to represent the case on her behalf to her father. At this 
unexpected announcement Alexander smiled and told her that he was 
now on his way to request the services of Mr. Luce, as he had himself 
determined to be immersed, and would lay the whole case before their 
father. He took the first opportunity, accordingly, of presenting the 
matter, stating the course he had pursued and the conclusions he had 
reached. His father, somewhat to his surprise, had but little to say, 
and offered no particular objection. He spoke of the position they 
had heretofore occupied in regard to this question, but forbore to urge 
it in opposition to Alexander's conscientious convictions. He finally 
remarked: " I have no more to add. You must please yourself." It 
was suggested, however, that in view of the public position they occu- 
pied as religious teachers and advocates of reformation, it would be 
proper that the matter should be publicly announced and attended to 
amongst the people to whom they had been accustomed to preach ; and 
he requested Alexander to get Mr. Luce to call with him on his way 
down, at whatever time might be appointed. 

Wednesday, the 12th day of June, 1812, having been selected, Elder 
Luce, in company with Elder Henry Spears, called at Thomas Camp- 
bell's on their way to the place chosen for the immersion, which was 
the deep pool in Buffalo Creek, where three members of the Associa- 
tion had formerly been baptized. Xext morning, as they were setting 
out, Thomas Campbell simply remarked that Mrs. Campbell had put 
up a change of raiment for herself and him, which was the first intima- 
tion given that they intended also to be immersed. Upon arriving at 
the place, as the greater part of the members of the Brush Kun 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 165 

Church, with a large concourse of o'hers, attracted by the novelty of 
the occasion, were assembled at David Bryant's house, near the place, 
Thomas Campbell thought it proper to present, in full, the reasons 
which had determined his course. In a very long address he accord- 
ingly reviewed the entire ground which he had occupied, and the 
struggles that he had undergone in reference to the particular subject 
of baptism, which he had earnestly desired to dispose of in such a 
manner that it might be no hindrance in the attainment of Christian 
unity which lie had labored to establish upon the Bible alone. In 
endeavoring to do this, he admitted that he had been led to overlook 
its importance, and the very many plain and obvious teachings of the 
Scriptures on the subject ; but having at length attained a clearer view 
of duly, he felt it incumbent upon him to submit to what he now 
plainly saw was an important divine institution. Alexander afterward 
followed in an extended defense of their proceedings, urging the 
necessity of submitting implicitly to all God's commands, and showing 
that the baptism of believers only was authorized by the Word of God. 

Seven persons were immersed — Alexander Campbell 
and his wife ; his father and mother, and his sister; with 
James Hanen and his wife, the latter being a very intel- 
ligent and courageous woman. Alexander had stipula- 
ted with Elder Luce that the ceremony should be 
performed precisely according to the apostolic pattern, 
and that, as there was no account given to show that 
converts in primitive times were called upon to give 
what is termed a "Christian experience" before they 
had entered upon a Christian life, this modern custom 
should be omitted, and that the candidates should be 
admitted on the simple confession that "Jesus Christ 
is the Son of the living God." Elder Luce at first 
objected, as being contrary to Baptist usage, but finally 
yielded, believing that the demand was right, and that 
he would run the risk of censure. All were, therefore, 
admitted to immersion upon making the simple but 
comprehensive confession of Christ, the same as that 
which was required in apostolic times. This meeting, it 



1 66 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL ABANDONS SECTARIANISM. 

is related, continued about srven hours. From what has 
been related in the foregoing chapters, one can readily 
perceive that the results of honest investigation thus 
practically brought to an issue, had been reached only 
through a series of severe mental struggles. Thomas 
Campbell had been a pedobaptist minister for twenty- 
five years. It never entered his mincl, when he first 
began to advocate Christian union among Presbyterians, 
that his principles would actually lead to the abandon- 
ment of infant baptism. Having accomplished his 
special mission in propounding and developing the true 
basis of Christian union, which, in a general way, was 
enunciated in his "Declaration and Address," and 
beyond which general principle of union he did not 
seem disposed to advance, his illustrious son Alexander 
now changed positions with him, and advanced to the 
front as the master-spirit of the new revolution, deeply 
impressed with the conviction that the hand of God was 
guiding him in a path of duty and responsibility not 
contemplated by his father. 

The Brush Run congregation continued to grow by 
frequent accessions of immersed believers; and as it had 
been with the church organized by the Haldanes at 
Edinburgh, so to this church, immersion became an apt 
emblem of separation from the world — a separation 
from the traditions of an apostate Church, a separation 
from mystic Babylon. They adopted immersion as the 
only scriptural mode ; they rejected infant baptism as a 
human invention, and the simple confession that "Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God," made to Christ by the 
first converts, was acknowledged as the only require- 
ment which could be scripturally demanded of those 
who desired to become members of the one body. All 



I 



Reformatory movements. 167 

these matters were determined by the plain and une- 
quivocal authority of the Holy Scriptures, as, from that 
time to this, they have continued to be prominent feat- 
ures in our plea for a restoration of the apostolic order 
of things. They had now, indeed, become learners in 
the school of Christ ; and in this respect they differed 
widely from all preceding reformers, in the fact that, 
instead of making creeds, reforming creeds, and ^-ad- 
justing creeds, to suit the changing times, and to please 
the changeable moods of men, they sought after and 
adopted the Bible as their only creed, and found the 
bas : s of Christian unity alone in the Word of God. 
They proposed no patchwork of the divine order of 
things, but, finally, so far as Alexander Campbell was 
concerned, a radical reformation was determined upon. 
Abandoning all creeds as the outgrowth of human weak- 
ness, and as the groundwork of selfish sectarian rivals, 
he proposed a reformation de novo — a reformation that 
would eventually result in a complete restoration. And, 
hence, he instituted at once a thorough research of the 
entire grounds of Christianity; and, by his voluminous 
writings, and public debates, and by his matchless ser- 
mons, repeated and published, he rescued the Bible 
from the hands of priests and a hireling clergy, and, in 
defiance of the combined assaults of the infidel world, 
placed Christianity upon the basis of authenticity, cred- 
ibility and inspiration. He found the plan of salvation 
in the Scriptures, and not in a set of cold, abstract prop- 
ositions ; he found a Savior in the person of Jesus the 
Christ, and not within the pale of some sectarian church ; 
he discovered that the Church of Christ was established 
in Jerusalem, and not in Rome, or at Augsburg, or at 
Heidelberg, or at Oxford, or at Westminster. 



ALEXANDER CAMPBELL UNITES WITH THE 
BAPTISTS. 



In 1813, as in 1889, baptism, as taught by Baptists, 
was not a command of Jesus Christ, made essential to 
the salvation of a sinner, as one of the conditions of 
pardon and acceptance, but it was simply made a door 
into the "visible Church" — a door into the Baptist 
Church. The regenerated sinner — enlightened, saved 
and sanctified by the direct, irresistible energy of the 
Holy Spirit, without faith in testimony and without obe- 
dience to the gospel — first became a member of the 
"invisible Church" (whatever that is), and afterward, 
by a vote of a local Baptist church, he was allowed to 
be baptized in order that he might have the inestimable 
privilege of communing with Baptists in a visible Baptist 
church ! On the contrary, Alexander Campbell and 
those who worshiped with him in the Brush Run con- 
gregation, made the discovery, by honest and candid 
investigation, that no one, under apostolic teaching, was 
ever received into the one body— into a state of salvation 
and justification — without immersion into the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. 
They discovered that it was by "the obedience of the 
faith," as well as by faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of 
God, that the sinner came into covenant relation with 
God, and that by this transition act he was conveyed 
from " the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's 
dear Son." In the Harbinger for 1848, page 344, Alex- 

(168) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 69 

ander Campbell tells how he came to unite with the 
Baptists, and the circumstances which led to a condi- 
tional union with the Redstone Baptist Association. 
And here is the narrative : 

After my baptism, and the consequent new constitution of our 
church of Brush Run, it became my duty to set forth the causes of this 
change in our position to the professing world, and also to justify them 
by an appeal to the Oracles of God. But this was not all; the position 
of baptism itsalf to the other institutions of Christ became a new sub- 
ject of examination, and a very absorbing one. A change of one's 
views on any radical matter, in all its practical bearings and effects 
upon all his views, not only in reference to that simple result, but also 
in reference to all its connections with the whole system of which it is 
a part is not t:> be computed, a priori, by himself or by any one else. 
The whole Christian doctrine is exhibited in three symbols — baptism, 
the Lord's Supper and the Lord's Day institution. Some, nay, very 
many, change their views in regard to some one of these without ever 
allowing themselves to trace its connections with the whole institution 
of which it is either a part or a symbol. My mind, neither by nature 
nor by education, was one of that order. I must know now two things 
about everything — its cante and its relations. Hence my mind was, for 
a time, set loose "from all its former moorings. It was not a simple 
change of view.-; on baptism, which happens a thousand times without 
anything more, but a new commencement. I was placed on a new 
eminence — a new peak of the mountain of God, from which the whole 
landscape of Christianity presented itself to my mind in a new attitude 
and position. 

I had no idea of uniting with the Baptists more than with the 
Moravians or the mere Independents. I had unfortunately formed a 
very unfavorable opinion of the Baptist preachers as then introduced 
to my acquaintance, as narrow, contracted, illiberal and uneducated 
men. This, indeed, I am sorry to say, is still my opinion of the min- 
istry of that Association at that day ; and whether they are yet much 
improved I am without satisfactory evidence. 

The people, however, called Baptists, were much more highly 
appreciated by me than their ministry. Indeed, the ministry of some 
sects is generally in the aggregate the worse portion of them. It was 
certainly so in the Redstone Association, thirty years ago. They were 
little men in a big office. The office did not lit them. They had a 
wrong idea, too, of what was wanting. They seemed to think that a 



I/O ALEXANDER CAMPBELL UNITES WITH THE BAPTISTS. 

change oi' apparel — a black coat instead of a drab a broad rim on 
their hat instead of a narrow one —a prolongation of the face and a 
fictitious gnu ity — a longer and more emphatic pronunciation of certain 
words, rather than scriptural knowledge, humility, spirituality, zeal 
and Christian affection, wirh great devotion and great philanthropy, 
were the grand desiderata. 

Along with these drawbacks, they had .is few means of acquiring 
Christian knowledge as they had either taste or leisure for it. They 
had but one, two, or, at the most, three sermons, and these were either 
delivered in one uniform style and order, or minced down into one 
medley by way of variety. Of course, then, unless they had an exu- 
berant zeal for the truth as they understood it, they were not of the 
calibre, temper or attainments to relish or seek after mental enlarge- 
ment or independence. I could not, therefore, esteem them, nor 
court their favor by offering any incense at their shrine. I resolved 
to have nothing especially to do with them more than with other 
preachers and teachers. The clergy of my acquaintance in other 
parties of that day were, as they believed, educated men, and called 
the Baptists illiterate and uncouth men, without either learning or 
academic accomplishments or polish. They trusted to a moderate 
portion of Latin, Greek and metaphysics, together widi a synopsis of 
divinity, ready-made in suits for every man's stature, at a reasonable 
price. They were as proud of their classic lore and the marrow of 
modern divinity, as the Baptist was of his "mode of baptism" and 
his "proper subieet " with sovereign grace, total depravity and final 
perseverance. 

I confess, however, that I was better pleased with the Baptist people 
than with any other community. They read the Bible, and seemed to 
care for little else in religion than " conversion" and ' 'Bible doctrine." 
They often sent for us and pressed us to preach for them. We visited 
some of their churches, and, on acquaintance, liked the people more 
and the preachers less. Still I feared that I might be unreasonable, 
and by education prejudiced against them, and thought that I mu: t 
visit their Association at Uniontown, Pa., in the autumn of 1812. I 
went there as an auditor and spectator, and returned more disgusted 
than when I went. They invited me "to preach," but I declined it 
altogether, except one evening in a private family, to some dozen 
preachers and twice as many laymen. I returned home, not intending 
ever to visit another Association. 

On my return home, however, I learned that the Baptists themselves 
did not appreciate the preaching of the preachers at that meeting. 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I7I 

They regarded the speakers as worse than usual, and their discourses 
as not edifying— as too much after the style of John Gill and Tucker's 
theory of predestination. They pressed me from every quarter to 
visit their churches, and, though not a member, lo preach for them. 
I often spoke to the Baptist congregations for sixty miles around. 
They all pressed us to join their Bedstone Association. We laid the 
matter before the Church in the fall of 1813. We discussed the pro- 
priety of the measure. After much discussion and earnest desire to 
be directed by the wisdom which cometh from above, we finally con- 
cluded to make an overture to that effect, and to write out a full view 
of our sentiments, wishes and determinations on that subject. We did 
so in some eight or ten pages of large dimensions, exhibiting our 
remonstrance against all human creeds as bonds of communion or union 
amongst Christian churches, and expressing a willingness, upon cer- 
tain conditions, to co-operate or unite with that Association, provided 
always that we should be allowed to teach and preach whatever we 
learned from the Holy Scriptures, regardless of any creed or formula 
in Christendom. A copy of this document, we regret to say, was not 
preserved, and, when solicited from the clerk of the Association, was 
refused. 

The proposition was discussed at the Association, and, after much 
debate, was decided by a considerable majority in favor of our being 
received. Thus a union was formed. But the party opposed, though 
small, began early to work, and continued with a perseverance worthy 
of a better cause. There was an Elder Pritchard, of Cross Creek, 
Virginia; an Elder Brownfield, of Uniontown, Penn.; an Elder Stone, 
of Ohio, and his son Elder Stone, of the Monongahela region, that 
seemed to have confederated to oppose our influence. But they, for 
three years, could do nothing. We boldly argued for the Bible, for 
the New Testament Christianity, vex, harass, discompose whom it 
might. We felt the strength of our cause of reform on every indica- 
tion of opposition, and constantly grew in favor with the people. 
Things passed along without any prominent interest for some two or 
three year?- 

The next Redstone Association convened at Cross 
Creek, August 30, 18 16. Alexander Campbell was 
nominated, with others, as one of the speakers for the 
occasion. Some of the jealous-minded ministers of the 
Association opposed the nomination, but the opposition 



172 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL UNITES WITH THE BAPTISTS. 

was overruled by other members of that body. When 
it came Campbell's turn to preach, he selected for his 
topic the following words, as quoted from Rom. viii. 3 : 
"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the like- 
ness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the 
flesh." This was the young polemic's famous ''Sermon 
on the Lazu," which subsequently created such wonder- 
ful excitement in the Baptist community. It was the 
sudden explosion, in the Baptist camp, of an apostolic 
bombshell. Even during its delivery, as soon as Elder 
Pritchard and other opposing preachers perceived its 
drift, they used every means openly to manifest their 
disapprobation. A lady in the congregation having 
fainted, Elder Pritchard rushed into the stand, called 
out some of the preachers, and created great disturb- 
ance in the large assembly, apparently with a design of 
distracting the attention of the eager listeners. As 
might be expected, much misrepresentation followed 
the delivery of this discourse. It was on account of 
these misrepresentations that Mr. Campbell thought it 
best, soon afterward, to publish this revolutionary ser- 
mon in pamphlet form, as the most effectual means of 
refutation. The sermon is published in full in the 
Millennial Harbinger for 1846 It is certainly a remark- 
able production, which is too lengthy to reproduce upon 
these pages. His method of analysis was as follows: 

1. Ascertain what ideas we are to attach to the phrase "the law " in 
this and similar portions of the Sacred Scriptures. 2. Point -out those 
things which the law could not accomplish. 3. Demonstrate the reason 
why the law fiiiled to accomplish these objects. 4. Illustrate how God 
has remedied these relative defects of the law. 5. In the last place, 
deduce such conclusions from these premises as must obviously and 
necessarily present themselves to every unbiased and reflecting mind. 



' 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 173 

Measured by the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, 
this sermon, in the estimation of those b goted Baptists, 
was most unorthodox and mischievously heterodox. 
And these clergy were the more incensed because they 
found themselves incapable of answering the points 
taken in the sermon. The object of the sermon was, 
by contrasting the law of Moses with the gospel of 
Christ, by contrasting the Old Covenant with the New 
Covenant — by showing the difference between "the let- 
ter that kills" and "the law of the Spirit" that gives 
life — to convince his hearers that they could not be 
saved and justified by any system of things not author- 
ized by Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and not- 
proclaimed by his apostles. This sermon invoked the 
wrath of some of the Baptist clergy, and stirred up 
vengeful and uncompromising opposition. Subsequent 
to the presentation of this unanswerable address, this 
Baptist Association, for several consecutive years, by 
means of a self-constituted ecclesiastical court, brought 
charges of heretical teachings against Thomas and Alex- 
ander Campbell. Whenever their persecutors failed to 
sustain the charge of heresy, they would attempt to 
tamper with the ignorance and prejudices of members 
under their influence, and by pursuing this unchristian 
course lessen the unanimity of the churches in favor of 
the defendants in the case, and increase the chances of 
success in their ultimate excommunication from the 
Baptist communion. The two Campbells, foreseeing 
that it was the fixed intention of their mischievous per- 
secutors to gain a majority of votes in favor of their 
excommunication, severed their connection and withdrew 
from the Redstone Baptist Association, and united 
themselves with the Mahoning Baptist Association, in 



174 ALEXANDER CAMPBELL UNITES WITH THE BAPTISTS. 

Eastern Ohio, and by this step frustrated the precon- 
certed schemes of their malignant opponents. This 
Association, being much more enlightened and liberal 
in their views of the truth, received the two reformers, 
with other delegates from the feeble churches, with 
much cordiality and Christian affection. This Associa- 
tion received them upon the New Testament platform 
alone, to the exclusion of all human creeds and " church 
standards." 



A SIMILAR REFORMATION IN KENTUCKY. 



At the time the Campbells were urging reformation 
in the Presbyterian churches in Western Pennsylvania, 
there was a movement, similar in character, going for- 
ward in Kentucky, led by Barton W. Stone, a man of 
great intellectual force and possessed of rare zeal and 
devotion. Both Alexander Campbell and B. W. Stone 
sought to accomplish the same ends by the same means. 
Both, almost simultaneously, having discarded all 
human creeds, sought Christian union exclusively upon 
the basis of the Bible. By comparing notes, it was dis- 
covered that both were opposed to creeds as terms of 
communion ; that both desired to propagate only the 
primitive gospel ; that both were alike persecuted and 
maligned by those who. glorying in orthodoxy of opin- 
ion, failed to recognize a scriptural unity of faith ; and 
that both, after they came to understand the sentiments 
of each other, repudiating the despotism of opinionism, 
accepted only of faith that was founded upon indisput- 
able testimony. In Kentucky, the adherents of Camp- 
bell were called " Reformers," while at the same time 
the adherents of Stone were known as "Christians," or 
"67^m/-ians. " The followers of Stone had been charged 
with holding the doctrine of Arianism, but by inter- 
course with Stone and others, Campbell discovered that 
the charges were unjust and untrue. Campbell advo- 
cated fellowship with all who received the teachings of 
the Scriptures in their simple and obvious meaning, and 

(175) 



I76 A SIMILAR REFORMATION IN KENTUCKY. 

whose conduct corresponded with these teachings. He 
held that there was no need of strained interpretations, 
no need of specious glosses or textual perversions where 
no theological theory was to be sustained, .but where all 
could learn the truth by taking the Bible in its proper 
connections, and construing it in harmony with the 
established laws of language and rules of interpretation. 
He held that the simple truths of the gospel could be 
received by babes in Christ, and that upon these com- 
mon truths all could be united in one body. In short, 
the guiding principles of Campbell were substantially 
the same as those which guided the actions of Stone. 
Both were alike devoted to the great end of uniting the 
true followers of Christ into one communion upon the 
Bible alone, but, at first, each regarded the method of 
its accomplishment from his own angle of vision ; and 
since Campbell contemplated the distinct congregations, 
with their proper functionaries, as the highest religious 
executive authority on earth, he was in doubt as to how 
a formal union could be attained, whether by a general 
convention of messengers or by a general assembly of 
the people. Suffice it to say, that the coalescing of the 
two peoples was brought about through the spirit of 
Christ and of brotherly love. 

Some notable men fell into the wake of the reforma- 
tory movement of B. W. Stone, such as Samuel and 
John Rogers, Thomas M. Allen, F. R. Palmer and John 
Allen Gano — all grand characters — and all of whom, in 
subsequent years, distinguished themselves as advocates 
for a restoration of the apostolic order of things. A 
union of the "Christians" and " Reformers," or between 
the "Christian Church " and the Church of the "Re- 
formers," was directly secured through the agency of 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 177 

John T. Johnson, a man of rare self-denial, a man of 
noble Christian integrity, as well- as a natural orator. 
Johnson was originally a Baptist, but after examining 
in the light of the Bible what was vulgarly denominated 
" Campbellism," he separated from the Baptists, and, 
in 1 83 1, he formed the nucleus of a congregation of six 
on the basis of the Bible. Soon after, abandoning the 
lucrative practice of law, he began the public advocacy 
of the primitive gospel. Becoming intimately acquainted 
with B. W. Stone, who lived near Georgetown, he was 
urged by the latter to become co-editor of the Christian 
Messenger, to which he agreed at the close of 183 1. 
This paper was conducted in the interests of Christian 
union. Johnson found that a union in sentiment and 
religious aims already existed between the two peoples 
— the "Christians" and " Reformers" — to a large 
extent. The consummation of the union is thus 
described by Professor Richardson in his Memoirs of 
Alexander Campbell : 

This editorial union of B. W. Stone and John T. Johnson was soon 
followed by a fraternal union between the "Christian" Church and 
that of the "Reformers" meeting in Georgetown. Agreeing to wor- 
ship together, they found so much agreement in all essential matters, 
and so happy an effect produced in the increased number of conver- 
sions, that they were induced near the close of 1831 to appoint a general 
meeting at Georgetown to continue four days, for the purpose of 
considering the subject of a complete union between the two people. 
This meeting included Christmas Day, and a similar one was appointed 
for the following week, including New Year's Day, at Lexington. 
Many of the leading preachers on both sides attended and took part in 
these meetings, and so much evidence was afforded of mutual Christian 
love and' confidence, and such undoubted assurances were given of a 
firm determination on the part of all to have nothing to do with doc- 
trinal speculations, but to accept as conclusive upon all subjects the 
simple teachings of the Bible, that there seemed to be no longer any- 
thing in thfe way of the most earnest and hearty co-operation. After 
13 



I78 A SIMILAR REFORMATION IN KENTUCKY. 

the meeting at Lexington, some further friendly conferences were held 
by means of committees, and, by arrangement, the members of both 
churches communed together 0:1 the 19th of February, agreeing to 
consummate the formal and public union of the two churches on the 
following Lord's Day, the 20. h. During the week, however, some 
began to fear a difficulty in relation to the choice of elders and the 
practical adoption of weekly communion, which they thought would 
require the constant presence of an ordained administrator. The per- 
son who generally ministered to the Christian Church at Lexington at 
this time was Thomas Smith, a man of more than ordinary abilities 
and attainments, and long associated with the movement of B. W. 
Stone. He was an excellent preacher, and was considered a skillful 
debater. He possessed withal a very amiable disposition, and was 
highly esteemed by Mr. Campbell, whom he often accompanied during 
his visits in Kentucky. He was at first, like others, apprehensive that 
the proposed union was premature, and that disagreement might arise 
in regard to questions of church order. The union was therefore post- 
poned, and matters remained for a short time stationary ; but it soon 
became generally apparent that there were no exclusive privileges 
belonging to preachers as it concerned the administration of ordinances, 
and Thomas M. Allen, coming to Lexington, induced them to complete 
the union and to transfer to the new congregation, thus formed under 
the title of "the Church of Christ," the comfortable meeting-house 
which they had previously held under the designation of "the Chris- 
tian Church." This wise measure secured entire unanimity, and was 
especially gratifying to the " Reformers," who had been meeting in-a 
rented building. At Paris, also, Mr. Allen succeeded in effecting a 
union between the two churches, for one of which lie had himself been 
preaching, while James Challen at this time ministered to the other. 
He proposed that both he and Mr. Challen should retire, and that the 
united churches should engage permanently the services of Aylette 
Raines. This was accordingly done, and Mr. Raines, leaving his field 
in Ohio, from this time continued to preach for the church at Paris, as 
well as for other churches in Kentucky, for more than twenty years, 
aiding besides in numerous protracted meetings, and by his steady, 
unremitting labors and able advocacy of the Reformation principles 
greatly extending their influence." — Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 
pp. 383-85. 

There were present at the Lexington Conference: B. 
W. Stone, John T. Johnson, John (Raccoon) Smith, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 179 

John Rogers, G. W. Elley and Jacob Creath, Jr. — all 
notable men. The adherents of Stone did not all follow 
him, and some of his brethren censured him for the 
course he had pursued. However, in the course of 
time, the great majority were absorbed in the common 
plea for Christian union. B. W. Stone had been raised 
a Presbyterian. He began his plea for Christian union 
upon the basis of the Bible in 1804, eight years before 
Alexander Campbell was immersed. 

It is a noteworthy fact that at the very time when 
these events were transpiring in Kentucky, the same 
spirit of union was prevailing over sectarianism and 
bigotry and prejudice in other States also. John Long- 
ley, of Rush County, Indiana, under date of the 24th 
of December, 183 1, says: 

The Reforming Baptists and we are all one here. We hope that 
the dispute hetween you and Bro. Campbell, about names and priority, 
will forever cease, and that you will go on, united, to reform the 
world. 

Griffith Cathey, of Tennessee, on the 4th of January, 
1832, writes substantially as follows: 

The members of the Church of Christ, and the members known by 
the name of Disciples, or Reformed Baptists, regardless of all charges 
about Trinitarianisra, Arianism and Socinianism, and of the questions 
whether it is possible for any person to get to heaven without immer- 
sion, or whether immersion is for the remission of sins, have come 
forward, given the right hand of fellowship, and united upon the 
plain and simple gospel. 

Alexander Campbell, by his commanding talents, by 
his great force of character and by his invincible cour- 
age, overshadowed all other reformers, and at once, by 
common consent of all parties, became the acknowl- 
edged champion — the admired leader — of the great 
onslaught upon the sectarian world. B. W. Stone died 



l8o A SIMILAR REFORMATION IN KENTUCKY. 

at the age of eighty-four, after having spent his life in 
laboring incessantly for the union of God's people. He 
was a grand character, a man of noble instincts, of supe- 
rior intelligence, and greatly loved and admired for his 
unselfish and philanthropic devotion to the cause of 
Christ. He lives in history as one of the most distin- 
guished factors in the greatest religious revolution of 
modern times. 



THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IDENTIFIED. 



By degrees the Mahoning Baptist Association lost its 
legislative and ecclesiastical character, under the reforma- 
tory movements of the Campbells, and their coadjutors, 
and the ministers of a free people, heretofore living 
under the influence of this Association, gradually lost 
their affection for human tradition and theological specu- 
lations, which had been made tests of Christian fellow- 
ship ; so that, in due course of time, by learning how to 
use the rules of Bible interpretation — how to quote and 
apply Scriptures — how to distinguish the law from the 
gospel — how to distinguish the Jewish from the Chris- 
tian dispensation, and the Patriarchal from the Jewish — 
this Association entirely lost its distinctive ecclesiastical 
features, and was finally absorbed by the "Big Meet- 
ings" of the "Western Reserve." 

It never was in the mind of either Thomas or Alex- 
ander Campbell to start a new sect ; indeed, as we have 
already shown, they disclaimed and abhorred the very 
idea; they simply sought reformation within their own 
ranks, as did the reformers of the three preceding cen- 
turies. But now, under the guidance of a gracious 
Providence, having broken away from all traditional 
trammels — the principles of the "Declaration and 
Address" pushing them to the front by logical necessity 
— having escaped the clerical yoke of spiritual bondage 
— and having accepted the Bible as their only safe and 
infallible guide, and acknowledging Jesus the Christ as 

(181) 



l82 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IDENTIFIED. 

their only infallible lawmaker and legislator, these illus- 
trious reformers, with other mighty men of influence 
and eloquence, from the Protestant denominations, from 
this time forward began to advocate, not simply church 
reformation — which was all that the earlier reformers 
sought to accomplish — but an entire restoration of the 
apostolic order of things. They now resolved to go back 
beyond Philadelphia, beyond Oxford, beyond Westmin- 
ster, beyond Geneva, beyoncl Augsburg, beyond Heidel- 
berg, beyond Rome, and back to Jerusalem, and there 
begin a new survey of the great domain of apostolic 
Christianity. Accordingly, it was not long until the 
Christian Baptist, and other contemporaneous periodi- 
cals, were started to advocate this plea; a Bible college 
was organized in the interest of this plea ; a host of elo- 
quent preachers entered body and soul into the work, 
and, as a consequence, converts from the world and 
from sectariandom were made by thousands. 

If Martin Luther wrested the Bible out of the hands 
of the Roman priesthood, and gave it to the people — 
which had been a sealed book to the masses — Alexan- 
der Campbell did a mightier work by wresting from the 
hands of the Papal and Protestant clergy false keys of 
Bible interpretation, while at the same time he restored 
to the people the only correct and approved rules of 
interpretation, which, without the aid of the private and 
mystic explanations of especially "called and sent 
preachers," would enable them to understand the Word 
of God for themselves. He taught the people how to 
read the Scriptures intelligently, and how to "accu- 
rately divide the Word of Truth." He showed how 
necessary it is to know where a thing was done, when it 
was done, how it was done, and by whom it was done ; 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 83 

whether the person speaking was a Jew or a Christian ; 
whether the persons addressed were saints or sinners; 
whether under the Old Covenant, or under the New 
Covenant; whether the speakers were discussing the 
law or the gospel ; whether those who wrote had refer 
ence to the Church of Christ, or to the " church that 
was set up in the wilderness" by Moses; or whether 
the gospel in fact was first preached by Abraham, or by 
the apostles of Jesus Christ; or whether the law of par- 
don, in relation to the sinner, emanated from Moses, a 
fallible man, or from Jesus of Nazareth, the divine Son 
of God. 

Following the motto that " where the Bible speaks, we 
speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent" Alexan- 
der Campbell, both in preaching and writing, showed 
the difference between facts and opinions — between per- 
sonal knowledge — the knowledge of the senses — and 
faith founded on testimony. He utterly repudiated the 
idea that the opinions of men should be made tests of 
Christian fellowship. These he regarded as only private 
property, and that, as such, they should be always held 
in abeyance, and never be intruded into the domain of 
fact and faith. He simplified the whole matter by 
showing that facts are to be believed, commands to be 
obeyed, and the promises of the gospel to be enjoyed. 
The commonest mind could apprehend these simple but 
grand divisions of the scheme of redemption. 

He showed that the plan of salvation was a divine 
and sublime and glorious unity — that there is "one 
Lord, one faith, and one baptism," and that "//^doc- 
trine of Christ " is a proposition altogether different 
from the "doctrines of men," and from the 'doctrines 
of demons. " He contended — and his arguments remain 



184 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IDENTIFIED. 

unassailable to the present day — that the Bible, and the 
Bible only, can be made the basis of Christian unity, 
and that no unity, either in form or in spirit, can ever 
take place until all creeds, Confessions of Faith, 
"Church Standards," and denominational titles — such 
as Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Metho- 
dist and Roman Catholic — shall be removed out of the 
way. All these are divisive of the "one body," of 
which body Christ is the one living- and all-animating 
Head. 

Campbell insisted that Bible things should be incul- 
cated in Bible words, that all theological terminologies 
should be abandoned, and that the nomenclature of 
scholastic schools should be rejected, as only serving to 
confuse and discourage " the common people who gladly 
hear the word," and who can not comprehend meta- 
physics, theological abstractions, and inferential deduc- 
tions. He taught— as do the "Disciples of Christ" 
now uniformly — that "the gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation," and that God has revealed no power 
above and beyond the gospel, as essential to enlighten- 
ment and conviction of sin. He did not limit the power 
of the Spirit, but he maintained that we have no right 
to pry into mysteries which the Almighty Father has 
not revealed. "Secret things belong to God, but 
revealed things to us and our children." 

He taught that the revealed promises of God are the 
only evidences of pardon in our possession, and while 
relying implicitly and unequivocally upon the Word of 
God, he rejected all sensuous evidence of pardon, such 
as psychological impressions, dreams, apparitions, super- 
natural visitations, ecstasies; all of which superstition 
notions were prevailing at the time when — eighty years 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 85 

ago — the Campbells proposed to abandon the sectarian 
world and return to the Bible and apostolic teaching. 
Of course, as a consequence of the principles which they 
adopted, they could do no other than throw overboard, 
as lumber of the mystical and monkish ages, all specu- 
lative theories of conversion — the doctrine of direct 
supernatural agency — and show, by apostolic teaching, 
that it is the moral power of divine truth, as exerted 
through the gospel, that changes the moral nature of 
man. 

By an appeal to the New Testament, they showed 
that the working of miracles, by the apostles, was 
designed as a "confirmation of the word," as revealed 
by the Holy Spirit, but that in no place is it recorded 
that a miracle ever changed the heart of a sinner. 
"Signs," says Paul, "are not for them that believe, but 
for them that believe not." The sinner is saved by faith 
in Jesus the Christ, and by obedience to the conditions 
of the gospel. 

Giving up infant baptism, while they were yet Pres- 
byterians in name, by a direct course, through Bible 
investigation, they came to that point, where, in the 
absence of all testimony, they were obliged to surrender 
both rantism and affusion, as being without the least 
authority in the Word of God. 

While accepting all the measures of reform as accom- 
plished by Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Melancthon, John 
Wesley and Roger Williams, which were accomplished 
in harmony with the inspired Scriptures, Alexander 
Campbell, and those royal spirits co operating with him, 
laid aside as impracticable all the theological specula- 
tions and false dogmas of those reformers, with all their 



I 86 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IDENTIFIED. 

contradictory deductions from human reason, unsup- 
ported by a "Thus saith the Lord." 

Having fully committed himself to a " Restoration of 
the Ancient Order of Things," Alexander Campbell 
encountered, in the outset, three popular systems of 
denominational justification, all of which, while being 
essentially the same in principle, flatly contradict the 
Word of God. These were Calvinism, Arminianism 
and Universalism. The central idea of the first is this: 
That God had from all eternity decreed the salvation of 
his own elect few, whose number can neither be increased 
nor diminished, while condemning all the rest of man- 
kind to eternal reprobation. And further, that man 
being totally depraved, and incapable of any volition 
toward good thoughts or good deeds, can only be 
renewed in life by the irresistible grace of God. The 
second theory embraces this idea: That, as it is impos- 
sible for man to repent of his sins, until he receives the 
gift of faith direct from heaven, he must remain in his 
sins until God, in his own good time, sends down the 
Holy Spirit to regenerate him. Man can do nothing, 
God must do all ; man must wait, and if God chooses 
not to visit him, he is lost. The third theory is to this 
effect: That God has from all eternity decreed the sal- 
vation of all men, and that all men, without the loss of 
one soul, will be made finally holy and happy. Take 
either one of these systems, and it is clear to be seen 
that man has nothing at all to do in securing his own 
salvation — that his salvation or condemnation is wholly 
in the hands of a stern and imph "able God; that salva- 
tion is entirely unconditional; that man is wholly and 
helplessly passive, and therefore irresponsible. Camp- 
bell held that if these systems are in harmony with the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I 87 

moral government of God, then is man not a free moral 
agent ; that there is no virtue in preaching the gospel ; 
that there is no need of a Mediator, and that a remedial 
scheme is a superfluity, if not an absolute myth. 

The effects of the religious revolution inaugurated by 
the Campbells were not foreseen by them and their 
coadjutors. Their steps evidently were guided by the 
providence of God; and now there is not a pulpit or a 
religious journal in the land that has not either directly 
or indirectly been influenced by the plea of those godly 
men, to reject many of the grosser forms of a perverted 
Christianity. On the question of Christian union — 
toward the consummation of which grand object Alex- 
ander Campbell gave the undivided energies of his 
eventful life— there is now a rapidly growing sentiment 
amoncr a H cr od men in the various denominations. 
Campbell held that all denominations never could unite 
as one spiritual body — neither as Presbyterians, nor as 
Episcopalians, nor as Lutherans, nor as Methodists, nor 
as Baptists, nor upon any other sectarian name ; but 
that they could unite as Christians, that being designa- 
ted as the scriptural name of the followers of Christ, the 
Founder of the Church. He held that all these church 
titles were of purely human origin, that they tended 
continually toward carnality and the secularization of 
divine things, and that as central ideas of church polities 
— each polity antagonizing every other polity — they 
contradict the last intercessory prayer of our Savior, who 
prayed that all his disciples might be of one mind and 
heart ; that as he and his Father are one, so his disciples 
might be one with them, that the world might believe 
that he is the Messiah— Christ himself representing the 
one true vine, and his disciples the branches, which fact 



1 88 THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IDENTIFIED. 

forever excludes the idea that denominations constitute 
"branches" of the "one body." When Christ said, 
"Upon this rock I will build my church," the concep- 
tion of a Papal or Protestant Church, or a Gallican or 
Anglican Church, was not present in his mind. So 
many diverse bodies can not possibly possess the Spirit 
of Christ. The spirit of man is in them, and hence they 
can not be divine. 



THE RESTORATION OF APOSTOLIC CHRIS- 
TIANITY. 



In closing our series of articles on Reformatory Move- 
ments, we propose to give the results of the religious 
revolution as inaugurated by Alexander Campbell. 

It has been made evident by the numerous facts which 
we have heretofore narrated, that Campbell worked 
himself out of spiritual Babylon by a thorough investi- 
gation of the Scriptures, and that he abandoned all 
Protestant sects because he could not find the basis of 
Christian union in any one of them. He faithfully fol- 
lowed the logic of God's Word to the end. He dis- 
carded the deductions of human reason as a logical 
necessity, and settled all controversies by a direct 
appeal to the law and authority of Jesus the Christ. 
He established the proposition that Jesus Christ is the 
only begotten Son of God, by the most majestic and 
incontrovertible arguments that were ever penned by 
mortal man. His arguments on the divinity of Christ 
stand before the world without a parallel. His theses 
on the Person of Christ, as Prophet, Priest and King, 
and as the only Savior of men, and as the only hope of 
the world, have never been excelled. He showed that 
salvation from sin is not in subscription to creeds or 
dogmas ; not in joining some orthodox church ; not in 
indorsing the opinions of men, however hoary with age ; 
but in a person, in the Person of Christ ; that " all the 
promises of God are in him yea, and in him amen." 

(189) 



I9O THE RESTORATION OF APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 

The ground of assurance we occupy may now be 
briefly stated : 

I. Our creed is the Inspired Word of God ; no more, 
no less. 

II. We believe with all the heart that the Word of 
God — the Plan of Salvation — was miraculously revealed 
by the Holy Spirit, and that the revealed Word was 
confirmed by miraculous attestations of divine power. 

III. We believe that the gospel— which consists of 
the death, burial and resurrection of Christ — is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one who believes 
it and obeys it. 

IV. Accepting of no theory of regeneration, and dis- 
carding alike all mystical influences and all scholastic 
vagaries, we believe that sinners who are brought under 
the power of the truth, are begotten of the Word of God 
— are begotten through the gospel — are made alive by the 
truth, and born of water. 

V. We believe that immersion, preceded by genuine 
faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior of men, and preceded 
by genuine repentance toward God, is, if done in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit, for the remission of past sins, and that' it is the 
consummating act in the divine process of salvation. 

VI. Taking the Scriptures as our infallible guide in 
all spiritual things, we believe that the heart of the sin- 
ner is changed by the truth contained in the Scriptures, 
and that it is the moral power of God found in the 
divine testimonies, which, when brought to bear upon 
the sinner's heart, changes his moral nature, and makes 
him a "new creature" in Christ Jesus. We believe 
that the truth, as revealed by the Holy Spirit, was 
intended by the heavenly Father to " convince the world 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. I9I 

of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come;" 
that in conversion, the Holy Spirit is the agent, and the 
word revea^d by the Spirit the instrument. We believe 
that it is the Word of God, wielded by the Spirit, that 
does the execution, and that it is the Word of God, as 
the sword of the Spirit, that slays the sinner and destroys 
his love of sin. As we do not believe in the efficacy of 
the Word without the presence of the Spirit, neither do 
we believe in a direct mystical operation of the Spirit 
without the presence of the Word in the sinner's heart, 

VII. We believe that the act of pardon takes place in 
the mind of God, and not in the sinner's heart; -and we 
know this to be so, because the conditions of pardon are 
found recorded in the revealed will of God. We do not 
believe that a sinner — by the mere testimony of his 
feelings — has a personal consciousness of the pardon of 
his sins. Remission of sins is purely a matter of faith 
in the promises of God, and not a mere matter of con- 
scions feeling, as produced by a psychological state of 
heart or affections. It is the love of God that changes 
the sinner's heart, and it is the truth that convicts the 
sinner of sin; and it is God who remits sin through 
obedience to the gospel. Of course, we here only pro- 
pose to give statements, not arguments. 

YIII. We do not pretend to limit the power of the 
Holy Spirit, but, in the absence of testimony, we can 
not believe that there is a superadded power, beyond 
and apart from the gospel, necessary to the conviction 
of the sinner. Such a speculation was never even hinted 
at by Christ and his apostles. In all doctrinal matters, 
and in all questions of commands and personal obe- 
dience, " where the Bible speaks, we speak; and where 
the Bible is silent, we are silent." We are, theref 



Ig2 THE RESTORATION OF APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 

as much bound to respect the silence of the Bible, as we 
are bound to honor its utterances. 

IX. We believe that God only acknowledges one 
body of believers, and that all converted men, in order 
to become members of the one body of Christ, must, by 
the teachings of the Holy Spirit, be "immersed into 
the one body." We designate the one body, of which 
Christ is the one all animating head, the Church of 
Christ, because the body is constituted of those who 
believe in Christ, obey Christ, and walk in Christ. We 
call ourselves Christians, because Christ is our only 
King and Lawgiver, and him only do we propose to 
follow. We call ourselves the Disciples of Christ, 
because we learn only from Christ and his apostles. 

X. In church edification, in worship, in disciplinary 
matters, and in the weekly communion, we take the 
Xew Testament as our only rule of faith and practice. 

There are some things we do not believe, because not 
authorized and sustained by the Word of God. 

1. We do not believe in sectarian churches, nor in 
Protestant denominationalism, nor in the Roman Catho- 
lic Church, or any other church that has an existence 
without the sanction of God's Word. 

2. Wc do not be'ieve in human creeds, in speculative 
dogmas, in theories of regeneration, in the mourning- 
bench business, in dreams and apparitions, in phantasies 
and ecstasies, nor in sensuous feelings, as guides in the 
way of obedience and of a divine life. 

3. We do not believe in a direct, special, irresistible 
theory of regeneration. 

4. We do not believe in infant baptism, nor in affu- 
sion, nor rantism. We have good reason to believe that 

' they originated in an apostate church. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 93 

5 We do not believe in a Roman Church, nor in an 
Episcopal Church, nor in a Lutheran Church, nor in a 
Presbyterian Church, nor in a Baptist Church, nor in a 
Methodist Church, nor in any other church not known 
in the apostolic age. We do not believe in any human 
organization as a substitute for the Church of the living 
God. 

6. We do not believe that persons who have never 
been immersed into Jesus Christ — into the death of 
Christ — into the one body — are members of the one 
body. 

7. We do not believe that morality, no matter how 
high its character or how highly prized by men, will 
save a soul from eternal death, without the righteousness 
of Christ, and without the righteousness of God. 

8. We do not believe that God will save men by faith 
alone, or by repentance alone, or by baptism alone, or 
by grace alone, or by works alone. We believe that 
God will save men who sustain the relation of a Chris- 
tian, and who have the character of a Christian. This 
is inclusive of all possible good. 

9. We do not believe in a Papal form of church gov- 
ernment, nor in an Episcopal form of church govern- 
ment, nor in a Presbyterial form of church government ; 
but we do believe in the independency of every congre- 
gation, as regards church government, and in the sov- 
ereign right of every congregation to choose its own 
officers, such as elders and deacons. We also believe 
that while the congregations maintain a separate gov- 
ernmental independency, they are at the same time 
spiritually and sympathetically united in Christ as one 
harmonious body, and that they are mutually bound to 
co-operate in the accomplishment of the same grand 

H 



194 THE RESTORATION OF APOSTOLIC CHRISTIANITY. 

objects, especially in proclaiming the glad tidings of 
salvation and establishing congregations according to 
the apostolic model. 

What we have now mapped out as the ground we 
occupy, we are thoroughly convinced is truly the apos- 
tolic ground, and a ground of unity about which there 
can be no intelligent controversy. The ground we 
occupy excludes all sectarianism. A'l the people of 
God may occupy this ground. We invite all men to 
receive the same Bible we receive ; to accept the same 
creed we accept ; to honor the same Lord we honor; to 
obey the same gospel we obey ; to bear the same scrip- 
tural titles we bear; to "walk by the same rules," to 
"mind the same things," to "speak the same things," 
to be "joined together in the same judgment," to con- 
tend earnestly for the same faith. 



HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 



Many writers, Protestant as well as Romanist, have 
regarded the assembly of the apostles and elders of 
Jerusalem, of which we read in Acts xv. , as the first 
ecclesiastical council, and the model on which others 
were formed, in accordance, as they suppose, with a 
divine command or apostolic institution. But this view 
of the subject is unsupported by the testimony of the 
apostolic times, and is at variance with the opinions of 
the earliest writers, who refer to the councils of the 
Church. Tertullian speaks of the ecclesiastical assem- 
blies of the Asiatic and European Greeks as a human 
institution ; and in a letter written by Firmilian, Bishop 
of Caesarea, to Cyprian, about the middle of the third 
century, the same custom is referred to merely as a con- 
venient arrangement existing at that time among the 
churches of Asia Minor for common deliberation on 
matters of extraordinary importance. Besides this, it 
will be discovered, upon examination, that the councils 
of the Church were assemblages of altogether a differ- 
ent nature from that of the apostles ; the only point in 
which the alleged model was really imitated being, per- 
haps, the form of the preface to the decree, "It has 
seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." — Studien it. 
Kritiken, 1842, i. 102 sq. 

A council is an assembly of bishops or pastors called 
together for the discussion and regulation of ecclesias- 
tical affairs. The beginning of the system of church 

(195) 



I96 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

councils is traced to the meeting of the apostles and 
elders at Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts xv. This, as 
mentioned above, is generally considered to be the first 
council; but it differed from all others in this circum- 
stance, that it was under the special guidance of the 
Holy Spirit. Roman Catholic writers speak of four 
apostolical councils, viz.: Acts i. 13, for the election 
of an apostle; Acts vi., to choose deacons; Acts xv. , 
the one named above; Acts xxi. 18 sq. But none of 
these had a public and general character, except the 
one in Acts xv. (Schaff, History of Christian Churchy ii., 
sec. 65). Although the gospel was soon after propaga- 
ted in many parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, there is 
not a particle of evidence to show that any public meet- 
ing of Christians was held for the purpose of discussing 
any contested point until the middle of the second cen- 
tury. From that time councils became frequent : but as 
they consisted only of those who belonged to particular 
districts or countries, they are usually termed diocesan, 
provincial, patriarclial or national councils, in contradis- 
tinction to ecumenical or general councils, i. e., supposed 
to comprise delegates or commissioners* from all the 
churches in the Christian world, and consequently sup- 
posed to represent the Church universal. 

According to Dr. Schaff, the word ecumenical occurs 
first in the sixth canon of Constantinople, A. D. 381. 
But no such assembly was held, or could be held, before 
the establishment of the Christian religion over the ruins 
of paganism in the Roman Empire. Their title to rep- 
resent the whole Christian world is not valid After the 
fourth century the "lower clergy and the laity" were 
entirely excluded from the councils, and bishops only 
admitted. The number of bishops gathered at the 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 97 

greatest of the councils constituted but a small portion 
of the number who claimed to be bishops. The ecu- 
menical councils which are generally admitted to bear 
that title most justly were rather Greek than general 
councils. In the strict and proper sense of the term, 
therefore, no ecumenical council has ever been held. 
There are seven councils admitted by both the Greek 
and Latin churches as ecumenical, to which number the 
Roman Catholics add twelve, mnking nineteen in all, 
which we now shall notice in their regular historical 
order. 

I. APOSTOLICAL COUNCIL. 

This council convened in Jerusalem, A. D. 47, and, 
according to the meaning of the term, is the only coun- 
cil mentioned in the New r Testament. The conversion 
of Cornelius having thrown open the Church of Christ 
to the Gentiles, many uncircumcised persons were soon 
gathered into the congregation formed at Antioch under 
the labors of Paul and Barnabas ; but, on the visit of 
certain Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, a dispute 
arose as to the admission of such Gentiles as had not 
even been proselytes to Judaism, but were brought in 
directly from paganism. To settle this question, the 
brethren at Antioch deputed Paul and Barnabas, with 
several others, to lay the matter before a general meet- 
ing of the apostles and elders in the Jerusalem congre- 
gation, which was the first congregation formed under 
the apostles, and obtain their formal and final decision 
on a point of so vital importance to the progress of the 
gospel in all heathen lands. On their arrival and pres- 
entation of the subject, a similar opposition (and of a 
heated character, as we find from the notices in Gal. ii.) 
was made by Christians formerly of the Pharisaic party 



I90 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

at the metropolis ; so that it was only when, after con- 
siderable dispute, Peter had rehearsed his experience 
with reference to Cornelius, and the signal results of 
the labors of Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles 
had been recounted, that James, as president of the 
council, pronounced in favor of releasing those received 
into the church from the Gentiles, without requiring 
circumcision or the observance of the Mosaic ceremonial 
law. This conclusion was generally assented to, and 
promulgated in a regular authoritative form, and was 
sent back to Antioch by Paul and Barnabas by letter 
message, to be thence circulated in all the churches in 
pagan countries. By the decision of this council, the 
faithful were commanded to abstain (1) from meats 
which had been offered to idols (so as not even to 
appear to countenance the worship of the heathen), (2) 
from blood and strangled things, and (3) from fornica- 
tion — the prevailing vice of the Gentiles. 

II. COUNCIL OF NICE. 

Two church councils have been held at Nicaea, but 
only the first of these was properly oecumenical, and it 
is regarded as the most important of such assemblies. 
It was convened by the Emperor Constantine in A. D. 
325. Along with the imperial summoning of the coun- 
cil, the different bishops were proffered the service of 
public conveyances for themselves and two presbyters 
and three servants ; and when the three hundred and 
eighteen bishops who had complied with the Emperor's 
request gathered at Nice, the Emperor himself opened 
the council, June 19, in his own palace, and its use for 
future sessions was afforded to this august body of 
ecclesiastics, as it appears from the records that the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 1 99 

sessions, continuing for two months, were held some- 
times at the palace, and sometimes at a church or some 
public building. The Empire, at the time of the call 
of the council, contained in all about eighteen hundred 
bishops i one thousand for the Greek provinces, eight 
hundred for the Latin), and of these, if three hundred 
and eigh'een attended as reported by Athanasius {Ad. 
Apos., c. 2., et a/.), Socrates {Hist. Eccles., bk. viii.) and 
Theodoret {Hist. Eccles., i. 7), there were one-sixth of 
the "episcopal sees" represented at Nice — a large 
number, indeed, if we take into consideration the vast- 
ness of the imperial realm, and the difficulty of travel 
in those times. Including the presbyters and deacons 
jind other attendants, the number may have amounted 
in all to between fifteen hundred and two thousand. 
Most of the Eastern provinces were strongly repre- 
sented. Besides a great number of obscure mediocri- 
ties, there were several venerable and distinguished 
men: as e. ^ r . , Eusebius of Caesarea, who was most emi- 
nent for learning; the ''young archdeacon Athanasius," 
who accompanied the bishop Alexander of Alexandria, 
and who was noted for zeal, intellect and eloquence. 

"Some, as confessors, still bore in their bodies 
the marks of Christ from the times of persecution ; 
Paphantias of the Upper Thebaid, Potamon of Herak- 
lea, whose right eye had been put out, and Paul of 
Neo-Cajsarca, who had been tortured with red-hot 
iron under Licinius, and was crippled in both his hands. 
Others were distinguished for extraordinary ascetic holi- 
ness, and even for miraculous works; like Jacob of 
Nisibis, who spent years as a hermit in forests and 
caves, and lived like a wild beast on roots and leaves, 
and Spyridion (or St. Spiro), of Cyprus, the patron of 



200 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

the Ionian Isles, who even after his ordination remained 
a simple shepherd. The Latin Church, on the contrary, 
had only seven delegates; from Spain, Hosius or Osius, 
of Cordova, the ablest and most influential of the West- 
ern representatives ; from France, Nicasius of Dijon ; 
from North Africa, Caecelian of Carthage ; from Pan- 
nonia, Domnus of Strido; from Italy, Eustorgias of 
Milan, and Marcus of Calabria; from Rome, the two 
presbyters, Victor, or Vitus, and Vincentius, as delegates 
of the aged Pope Sylvester I., who found it impossible 
to attend in person. A Persian bishop, John, also, and 
a Gothic bishop, Theophilus, the forerunner and teacher 
of the Gothic Bible translator Ulfilas, were present." 
{McC/tutock and Strong s Encyclopedia, vol. vii., p. 44 ) 
Various theories have been propounded to explain 
Constantine's aim in calling this council. By some it 
is represented as serving a political purpose (based on 
Eusebius, Vita. Constant, iii. 4); by others it is regarded 
as intended to restore quiet to the Church and unite all 
its parties in the great Trinitarian question on which 
the Church was at that time greatly divided — there 
existing three parties : one, which may be called the 
orthodox party, held firmly to the doctrine of the deity 
of Christ; the second was the Arian party, who regarded 
Christ as only a man ; and the third, which was in the 
majority, taking conciliatory or middle ground, and 
consenting to the use of such christological expressions 
as all parties could consistently agree upon They 
acknowledged the divine nature of Christ in general 
biblical terms, but avoided the use of the term liomoousian 
(which means like substance with the Father), which the 
Arians decried as unscriptural, Sabellian, and material- 
istic. According to Pusey, " Constantine did not 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 201 

understand the doctrine, and attached as much or more 
importance to uniformity in keeping Easter as to unity 
of faith. Indeed, he himself at this ti^e believed in no 
doctrine but that of Providence, and spared no terms of 
contempt as to the pettiness of the dispute between 
Alexander and Arius " , Councils of the Church, p. 102); 
yet it would seem that Constantine only called a council 
when he believed it impossible to restore peace between 
the contending parties, led respectively by Arius and 
Alexander, and now turned over the case for settlement 
to the bishops, who appeared to him to be the repre- 
sentatives of God and Christ, the organs of the divine 
Spirit ''that enlightened and guided the Church," and 
he appears to have hoped that when in council assem- 
bled, analogous to the established custom of deciding 
controversies in the single provinces by assemblies com- 
posed of all the provincial bishops, they would be able 
to dispose of the present controversy. 

No complete collection of the transactions of this 
Nicasan ecumenical council have come down to us. 
Some account of the bishops who composed this assem- 
bly is given by Socrates, Sozomen and Theodoret. It 
is uncertain who presided, but it is generally supposed 
that the president was Hosius, bishop of Cordova in 
Spain. From the reports of two of its attendants, 
Athanasius and Eusebius of Caesarea, we learn that it 
busied itself mainly with the settlement of the different 
christological views. The opening sessions were prin- 
cipally devoted, according to these writers, to a consid- 
eration of Arian views, and resulted finally in the 
examination of Arius himself. He did not hesitate to 
maintain that the Son of God was a creature, made 
from nothing ; that there was a time when he had no 



202 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

existence ; that he was capable of his own free will of 
right and wrong Athanasius, although at the time but 
a deacon, drew the attention of the whole council by 
his marvelous penetration in unraveling and laying open 
the artifices of the heretical views of Arius and his 
followers. He resisted Eusebius, Theognis and Maris, 
the chief supporters of Arius, and evinced such zeal in 
defense of the truth that he attracted both the admira- 
tion of all the anti-Arian party and the bitter hatred of 
the Arian party. We are told that so great and far- 
reaching was the influence of the criticism of Athana- 
sius, that many of the Arians became doubtful of their 
own standpoint, and eighteen of them abandoned the 
cause of Arius. The orthodox party themselves became 
enthusiastic in behalf of their cause, and when Eusebius 
of Caesarea proposed a confession of faith — an ancient 
Palestinian confession, which was very similar to the 
Nicene, and acknowledged the divine nature of Christ 
in general biblical terms, but avoided the term in ques- 
tion (Jioiuoousios, of tJic same essence), they rejected it, 
though the Emperor had seen and approved this con- 
fession, and even the Arian minority were ready to 
accept it. They wished a creed to which no Arian could 
honestly subscribe, and especially insisted on inserting 
the expression Jiomo-usios, which the Arians so much 
objected to. The fathers finally presented through 
Hosius of Cordova another confession, which became 
the substance of what is now known and owned by the 
orthodox churches as the well-known Nicene Creed 
Here is the Nicene Creed, as translated from the Greek, 
and which was adopted at the council of Nice in 325; 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 203 



THE NICENE CREED. 



We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things 
visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesns Christ, the S.m of God 
begotten of the Father; only-begotten, that is of the substance of the 
Father; God of God; Light of Light; very God of very God; begotten, 
not made; of the saino substance with the Father ; by whom all things 
were made, both things in heaven and things in earth ; who for us 
men and our salvation descended and became flesh, was made man, 
suffered, and rose again the third day. He ascended into heaven ; he 
cometh to judge the quick and dead. And in the Holy Spirit. Rut 
those who say there was a time when he was not ; or that he was not 
before he was begotten ; or that he was made from that which had no 
being; or who affirm the Son of God to be of any other substance or 
essence, or create/!, < r variable, or mutable, such persons doth the 
Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematize. 

This creed was enlarged at the second Council of 
Constantinople, in 381, by which the faith of the 
Church with regard to the person of Christ was set 
forth in opposition to certain errors, notably Arianism. 
Moreover, not only the Semi Arians, but even many of 
the Nicenians (followers of the Nicene Creed), held, 
with the Arians, and especially the Macedonians, that 
the Holy Spirit was created by the Father (Gieseler 
i. c). After ineffectual attempts, at several synods, to 
agree upon a formula, the Nicene Symbol, with certain 
additions, was adopted in 381, as already stated, at the 
second ecumenical Council of Constantinople. The 
parts added at Constantinople are put in brackets. We 
append it below as enlarged : 

(1) I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker [of heaven 
and earth], and of all things visible and invisible. (2) And in one 
Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten < f his 
Father [before all worlds]; [God of God]; Light of Light ; very God 
of very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the 
Father, by whom all things were made. (3) Who for us men and our 
salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate [by the Holy 



204 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

Spirit of the Virgin Mary], and was made man [and was crucified, 
also, for us under Pontius Pilate]; lie suffered and was buried; and 
the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures ; and ascended 
into heaven [and sitteth on the right hand of the Father]. And he 
shall come a;ain with glory to judge both the quick and the dead 
[whose kingdom shall have no end]. And I believe in the Holy 
Spirit [the Lord and Giver of Life], who proceedeth from the Father 
[and the Son], who, with the Father and the Son together is worshiped 
and glorified ; who spake by the prophets. And I believe in one 
catholic and apostolic church. I acknowledge one baptism for the 
remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the 
life of the world to come. Amen. 

The decision of the council having been laid before 
Cbnstantine, he saw clearly that the Eusebian formula 
would not pass ; and as he had at heart, for the sake of 
peace, the most nearly unanimous decision which was 
possible, he gave his voice for the disputed word, and 
declared that he recognized in the unanimous consent 
of the bishops the work of God, and received it with 
reverence, declaring that all those persons should be 
banished who refused to submit to it. Upon this the 
Arians, through fear, also anathematized the dogmas 
condemned, and subscribed the faith laid down by the 
council; that they did so only outwardly was shown by 
their subsequent conduct. It was declared by its advo- 
cates that it was presented after mature deliberation, 
and after diligent consultation of all that the holy 
evangelists and apostles have taught upon the subject ; 
and it proceeded to set forth the true doctrine of the 
Church in a creed, in which, in order to defy all the 
subtleties of the Arians (says a modern "orthodox" 
historian), the council thought good to express by the 
term " consubstantial " — Jiomoousios — the divine essence 
or substance which is common to the Father and the 
Son. According to Athanasius, this creed was in a 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 20$ 

great measure composed by Hosius, of Cordova. It was 
written out by Hermogenes, bishop of Caesarea, in 
Cappadocia, and subscribed, together with the condem- 
nation of the dogmas and expressions of Arius, by all 
the bishops present with the exception of a few of the 
Arians. Socrates (lib. i. t ch, 5) says that all the bishops 
except five; Barouus, that all except Eusebius, of 
Nicomedia, and Theognis, of Nicaea, assented to the use 
of the word ofioo'JG'.o- — homoousios. According to Cave, 
Secundus, of Ptolemais, and Theognis, of Marmorica, 
alone refused. Arius himself was banished, by Con- 
stantino's order, to Illyria, where he remained until his 
recall, which took place five years after. 

We have now transcribed the chief acts of the Nicene 
Council ; but that our readers may have, if possible, the 
full benefit of the minor proceedings of " the great and 
holy council," which "holds the highest place among 
all the councils,' 1 we proceed to show what other grave 
matters were disposed of by these famous bishops. 

First. They considered the subject of the Meletian 
schism, which for some time past had divided Egypt, 
and they decreed that Meletius should keep the title and 
rank of bishop in his See of Lycopolis, in Egypt, forbid 
ding him, however, to perform any episcopal functions; 
also, that they whom he had elevated to any ecclesias- 
tical dignities should be admitted to communion, upon 
condition that they should take rank after those who 
were enrolled in any parisJi (the district under a bishop's 
jurisdiction, which is now called a "diocese," was so 
styled in the Church at that time), and w T ho had been 
ordained by Alexander. Second. They decreed that 
throughout the Church, the festival of. Easter should be 
celebrated on the Sunday after the full moon which 



206 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

happens next after Marcli 21. Third. They published 
twenty canons or rules; and here they are: 

1. Excludes from the exercise of their functions those persons in 
holy orders who have made themselves eunuchs. 

2. Forbids to raise neophytes to the priesthood or episcopate. 

3. Forbids any bishop, priest or deacon to have women in their 
houses, except their mothers, sisters, aunts, or such women as shall be 
beyond the reach of slander. 

4 Declares that a bishop ought, if possible, to be constituted by all 
the bishops of the province, but allows of his consecration by three, at 
least, with the consent of the absent bishops signified in writing; the 
consecration to be finally confirmed by the metropolitan. 

5. Orders that they who have been separated from the communion 
of the Church by their own bishop shall not be received into commu- 
nion elsewhere. Also, that a provincial synod shall be held twice a 
year in every province to examine into sentences of excommunication ; 
one synod to be held before Lent, and the second in autumn. 

I). Insists upon tho preservation of the rights and privileges of the 
bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and other provinces. 

7. Grants to the bishop of JEWix, (JElia Capitolina, the new city built 
by .Elius Hadrianus upon the site of Jerusalem, or near it), according 
to ancient tradition, the second place of honor. 

8. Permits those who had been ministers among (he Cathari, and 
who returned into the bosom of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
having received imposition of hands, to remain in the ranks of the 
clergy. Directs, however, that they shall, in writing, make profession 
to follow the decrees of the Church ; and that they shall communicate 
with those who have married twice, and with those who have per- 
formed penance for relapsing in time of persecution. Directs, further, 
that in places where there is a Catholic bishop and a converted bishop 
of the Cathari (those pretending to peculiar purity of life), the former 
shall retain his rank and office, and the latter be considered only as a 
priest ; or the bishop may assign him the place of chorepiscopus. 

9. Declares to be null and void the ordination of priests made with- 
out due inquiry, and of those who have, before ordination, confessed 
sins committed. 

10. Declares the same of persons ordained priests in ignorance, or 
whose sin has appeared after ordination. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 20J 

11. Enacts that those who have fallen away in time of persecution 
without strong temptation shall be three ye: irs among the hearers, 
seven years among the prostrators, and for two years shall communi- 
cate with the people without offering (" communicate with the people 
in prayer, without being admitted to the oblation ; " i. e., to the holy 
eucharist, according to Johnson's way of understanding it). 

12. Imposes ten years' penance upon any one of the military, who, 
having been deprived of a post on account of the faith, shall, after all, 
give a bribe, and deny the faith, in order to receive it back again. 

13. Forbids to deny the holy communion to any one likely to die. 

14. Orders that catechumens who have relapsed shall be three years 
among the hearers. 

15. Forbids bishops, priests or deacons to remove from one city to 
another ; or any one offending against this canon to be compelled to 
return to his own church, and his translation to be void. 

If) Priests or deacons removing from their own church not to be 
received into any other ;»those who persist, to be separated from com- 
munion. If any bishop dare to ordain a man belonging to another 
church, the ordination to be void. 

17. Directs that all clerks guilty of usury shall be deposed. 

18. Forbids deacons to give the eucharist to priests, and to receive 
it themselves before the priests, and to sit among the priests ; offenders 
to be deposed. 

19. Directs that Paulianists coming over to the Church shall be bap- 
tized again. Permits those among their clergy who are without 
reproach, after baptism, to be ordained by the Catholic bishops ; 
orders the same thing of deaconesses. 

20. Orders that all persons shall off er up their prayers on Sundays 
and Pentecost, standing. 

It was also proposed to add another canon, enjoining 
continence upon the married clergy ; Paphnutius warmly 
opposed the imposition of such a yoke, and pre va led, 
so that the proposal fell to the ground. The creed and 
the canons were written in a book, and signe 1 by the 
bishops. The council issued a letter to the Egyptian 
and Libyan bishops as to the decision of the three main 
points; the Emperor also sent several edicts to the 



208 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

churches, in which he ascribed the decrees to divine 
inspiration, and sent them forth as laws of the realm 
On July 29, the twentieth anniversary of his accession, 
the Emperor gave the members of the council a splendid 
banquet in his palace, which Eusebius (quite too sus- 
ceptible of worldly splendor) describes as a figure of the 
reign of Christ on earth. Constantine remunerated the 
bishops lavishly, and dismissed them with a suitable 
valedictory, and with letters of commendation to the 
authorities of all the provinces on their homeward way. 

COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The first ecumenical Council of Constantinople was 
convoked in this eastern city in 381 by Theodosius the 
Great. There were present one hundred and fifty 
" orthodox bishops " (mostly eastern) and thirty-six fol- 
lowers of Macedonius, who left Constantinople when his 
doctrine was rejected by the majority. The council 
condemned, besides the Macedonians, the Arians, 
Unomians and Eudoxians, and confirmed the resolutions 
of the Council of Nice. It assigned to the bishop of 
Constantinople the second rank in the Church, next to 
the bishop of Rome, and in controversies between the 
two reserved the decision to the Emperor. 

The Second Council of Constantinople. — This 
council (the fifth in the list of ecumenical councils) was 
held in 553 on account of the Three Chapters contro- 
versy, by one hundred and sixty-five mostly Oriental 
bishops. This council excommunicated the defenders 
of the Three Chapters — Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas 
and others, and the Roman bishop Vigilius, who refused 
to condemn the Three Chapters unconditionally. 

Third Council of Constantinople. — This is the 



REFORMATORY »] .. rs. 20(j 

sixth in the list of ecumenical councils, and was held 
from 680 to 68 1 in the Trullan palace, and was attended 
by two hundred and eighty-nine bishops, among whom 
were three Oriental patriarchs, and four legates of the 
Roman bishop Agathon. The opinions of the Monothe- 
lites were condemned, especially through the influence 
of the Roman legates, as heretical. The General Coun- 
cil convoked in 691 by the Emperor Justinian II , was 
also held in the Trullan palace. As it was regarded as 
supplementing the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils, 
ivhich had given no church laws, it was called Quinisexta 
{Sy nodus) or Quinisextum {Concilium). It enacted one 
hundred and two stringent canons on the morals of 
clergymen and ecclesiastical discipline. It is recognized 
as an ecumenical council by the Greeks only. 

Fifth Council of Constantinople. —This assembled 
in 754, and was attended by three hundred and eighty- 
three bishops. It passed resolutions against the vener- 
ation of images, which were repealed by the second 
ecumenical council of Nice. It is not recognized by 
the Latin Church, but only by the Greek Church 

Sixth Council of Constantinople. — This was held in 
869, and hy the Church of Rome is regarded as the 
fourth ecumenical council of Constantinople, or the 
eighth in the list of ecumenical councils. It deposed 
the patriarch Photius, restored the patriarch Ignatius. 
and enacted laws on church discipline. It is, of course, 
not recognized by the Greek or Eastern Church. In 879 
another General Synod was held at Constantinople, 
attended by three hundred and eighty bishops, among 
whom were the legates of Pope John VIII. Photius 
was recalled, the resolutions of the preceding council 
against him repealed, and the position of the patriarch. 



210 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

of Constantinople to the Pope defined. The Greeks 
number this as the eighth ecumenical council. The 
ninth ecumenical council of the Greek Church was held 
in Constantinople, under the Emperor Adronicus the 
Younger, in 1 341 . It condemned the opinions of Bar- 
laam as heretical. 

Particular Synods. — Tne most important of the 
particular synods are: 1. and 2. In 336 and 339, two 
Arian synods, under the leadership of Eusebius, of 
Nicomedia. The former deposed and excommunicated 
Marcellus, of Ancyra ; the latter deposed and expelled 
Bishop Paulus, of Constantinople, and appointed Euse- 
bius his successor. 3. A Semi-Arian Synod against 
.Etius, who was banished. 4. In 426, a synod held 
against the Messalians ; in 418, 449 and 450, synods 
against the Eutychians. 5. In 495 and 496, Eutychian 
synods, condemning their opponents, and recognizing 
the Hawticop, of Geno. 6. A synod, in 516, condemned 
the resolutions of the council of Chalcedon. 7. In 536, 
against Severus, Anthimus, and other chiefs of tlu 
Acephali. 8. In 541 (543?), against some views of 
Origen. 9. In 815, two synods on the question of 
veneration of images ; the one, attended by two hundred 
and seventy bishops, in favor, and the second against 
the images. 10. In 861, introducing the patriarch Pho- 
tius, and approving the veneration of images. 1 1. In 
1 170 (according to others, 1 168), a synod, attended by 
many Eastern and Western bishops, on the reunion of 
the Eastern and Latin churches. Similar synods were 
held in 1277, 1280, 1285, all without effect. 12. In 
1450, a council convoked by the Emperor Constantine 
Pakeologus deposed the patriarch Gregory, put in his 
place the patriarch Athanasius, and declined to accept 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 211 

the resolutions passed by the council of Florence in 
favor of the union of the Greek and the Latin churches. 
13. In 1638 and 1642, two synods held against the 
crypto-Calvinism of the patriarch Cyril Lucaris. 

GENERAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 

The third ecumenical council, convoked by the em- 
peror Theodosius II., was held at Ephesus in 431, upon 
the controversy raised by Nestorius, bishop of Constan- 
tinople, who objected to the application of the title of 
Qsotoxo;* (theotokos) to the Virgin Mary. Celestine, 
the Pope, not seeing fit to attend in person, sent three 
legates, Arcadius and Projectus, bishops, and Philip, a 
priest. Among the first who arrived at the council was 
Nestorius, with a numerous body of followers, and 
accompanied by Irenaeus, a nobleman, his friend and 
protector. Cyril of Alexandria also, and Juvenal of 
Jerusalem came, accompanied by about fifty of the 
Egyptian bishops; Memnon of Ephesus had brought 
together about forty of the bishops within his jurisdic- 
tion ; and altogether more than two hundred bishops 
were present. Candidianus, the commander of the 
forces of Ephesus, attended, by order of the Emperor, 
to keep peace and order; but by his conduct he greatly 
favored the party of Nestorius. The day appointed for 
the opening of the council was June 7; but John of 
Antioch, and the other bishops from Syria and the East 
not having arrived, it was delayed till the 22d of the same 
month. At the first session of the council (June 22), 
before the Greek and Syrian bishops had arrived, Cyril 
and the bishops present condemned the doctrines of 
Nestorius, and deposed and excommunicated him. This 

* The offspring of God. 



212 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

sentence was signed by one hundred and ninety-eight 
bishops, according to Tillemont, and by more than two 
hundred according to Fleury; it was immediately made 
known to Nestorius, and published in the public places. 
At the same time, notice of the act was sent to the 
clergy and to the people of Constantinople, with a 
recommendation to them to secure the property of the 
Church for the successor of the deprived Nestorius. As 
soon, however, as Nestorius had received notice of this 
sentence, he protested against it, and all that had passed 
at the council, and forwarded to the Emperor an 
account of what had been done, setting forth that Cyril 
and Memnon, refusing to wait for John and the other 
bishops, had hurried matters on in a tumultuous and 
irregular way. On the 27th of June, twenty seven 
Syrian bishops arrived, chose John of Antioch for their 
president, and deposed Cyril in their turn. In August, 
Count John, who had been sent by Theodosius, arrived 
at Ephesus, and directed the bishops of both synods to 
meet him on the following day. Accordingly, John of 
Antioch and Nestorius attended with their party, and 
Cyril with the orthodox; but immediately a dispute 
arose between them; the latter contending that Nestorius 
should not be present, while the former wished to 
exclude Cyril. Upon this, the Count, to quiet the 
dispute, gave both Cyril and Nestorius into custody, 
and then endeavored, but in vain, to reconcile the two 
parties. And thus matters seemed as far from settle- 
ment as ever. The Emperor at last permitted the fathers 
of the council to send to him eight deputies, while the 
Orientals or Syrians, on their part, sent as many. The 
place of meeting was at Chalcedon, whither the Emperor 
proceeded, and spent five days in listening to the argu- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 213 

ments on both sides ; and here the Council of Ephesus 
may, in fact, be said to have terminated. Nothing is 
known of what passed at Chalcedon, but the event 
shows that Theodosius sided with the Catholics, since 
upon his return to Constantinople he ordered, by a 
letter, the Catholic deputies to come there, and to pro- 
ceed to consecrate a bishop in the place of Nestnrius, . 
whom he had already ordered to leave Ephesus, and to 
confine .himself to his monastery near Antioch. After- 
ward he directed that all the bishops at the council, 
including Cyril and Memnon, should return to their 
respective dioceses. The judgment of this council was 
at once approved by the whole Western Church, and by 
far the greater part of the East, and was subsequently 
confirmed by the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, 
consisting of six hundred and thirty bishops. Even 
John of Antioch and the Eastern bishops very soon 
acknowledged it. But Nestorius protested to the last 
that he did not hold the heretical opinions anathematized 
by the council. 

Of the other Councils of Ephesus, the following are 
all that need to be mentioned: I. In 245 (?) against the 
Patropassian Ncetus ; 2. In 400, under Chrysostom, 
where Heraclidus was consecrated bishop of Ephesus, 
and six simoniacal bishops deposed; and the "Robber 
Council" the details of which it is unnecessary to give. 

COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 

This (the fourth ecumenical council) was held in 451, 
and was convoked by the Emperor Marcianus, at the 
request of the bishops (especially of Leo I.) to put down 
the Eutychian and Nestorian heresies. The Emperor 
had first summoned the bishops to meet at Nicaea, but 



214 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

when the time approached he was prevented by political 
troubles from going so far from the Imperial City, and 
therefore changed the place of meeting to Chalcedon, in 
Bithynia, on the Bosphorus, opposite Constantinople. 
The council was attended by six hundred and thirty 
bishops and deputies, all Eastern except four legates 
sent by Leo I. from Rome. The sessions began Octo- 
ber 8, 451, and ended October 21. As the two parties 
in the council were roused to the highest pitch of pas- 
sion, the proceedings, especially during the early ses- 
sions, were very tumultuous, until the lay commissioners 
and senators had to urge the bishops to keep order, 
saying that such exftoTJaec: d'^/wuxac (vulgar outcries) 
were disgraceful. (Mansi, as quoted by Stanley, East- 
ern ChurcJi) lect. ii., p. 165.) 

At the first session (October 8, 451) the council assem- 
bled in the church of St. Euphemia ; in the center sat 
the officers of the Emperor ; at their left, or on the epis- 
tle side, sat the bishops of Constantinople, Antioch, 
Caesarea in Cappadocia, and of the other Eastern dio- 
ceses, and Pontus, Asia and Thrace, together with the 
four legates; on the other side were Dioscurus, Juvenal, 
Thalassius of Caesarea, and the other bishops of Egypt, 
Palestine and Illyria, most of whom had been present in 
the pseudo-council of Ephesus. In the midst were the 
holy gospels, placed upon a raised seat. When they 
had taken their seats, the legates of the Pope demanded 
that Dioscurus should withdraw from the assembly, 
accusing him of his scandalous conduct at P^phesus, and 
declaring that otherwise they would depart. Then the 
imperial officers ordered him to withdraw from the coun- 
cil, and to take his seat among the accused. The acts 
of the so called "Robber Council" of PIphesus were 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS, 215 

discussed and condemned, and Dioscurus was left with 
only twelve bishops to stand by him. The Eutychian 
heresy, that in our Lord were two natures before his 
incarnation, and but one afterward, was anathematized. 
The majority of the assembled bishops then proceeded 
to anathematize Dioscurus himself, and demanded that 
he, together with Juvenal of Jerusalem, Thalassius of 
Caesarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eustachius of Berytus, 
and Basil of Seleucia, who had presided at the council, 
should be deposed from the episcopate. 

At the second session (October 10) the following expo- 
sition of faith, substantially taken from a letter of Leo 
to Flavianus, was approved, and its opponents anathe- 
matized : "The divine nature and the human nature, 
each remaining perfect, have been united in one person, 
to the intent that the same Mediator might die, being 
yet immortal and impeccable. * * * Neither 
nature is altered by the other ; he who is truly God is 
also truly man. * ^ * The Word and the 

flesh preserve each its proper functions. Holy Scrip- 
ture proves equally the verity of the two natures. He 
is God. since it is written, ' In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word zuas God.' He is also man, since 
it is written, 'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us.' As man, he was tempted by the devil ; as 
God, he is ministered unto by angels. As man, he 
wept over the tomb of Lazarus ; as God, he raised him 
from the dead. As man, he is nailed to the cross ; as 
God, he makes all nature tremble at his death. It is by 
reason of the unity of th » person that we say that the 
Son of man came down from heaven, and that the Son 
of God was crucified and buried, although he was so 
only as to his human nature." 



2l6 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

At the third session the deposition of Dioscurus was 

pronounced irrevocable, and, soon after, he was ban- 
ished to Gangra, in Paphlagonia, where, in the course 
of three years, he died. 

In the fifth session the following formula of faith, on 
the question at issue, was adopted : " We confess, and 
with one accord teach, one and the same Son, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, perfect in the divinity, perfect in the 
humanity, truly God and truly man, consisting- of a rea- 
sonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father 
according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us 
according; to the manhood; in all things like unto us, 
sin only excepted; who was begotten of the Father 
before all ages, according to the Godhead; and in the 
last days, the same was born according to the manhood, 
of Mary the Virgin, mother (^{ God, for us and for our 
salvation ; who is to be acknowledged one and the same 
Christ, the Sou, the Lord, the only begotten in two 
natures, without mixture, change, division or separation ; 
the difference of natures not being remove.] by their 
union, but rather the propriety of each nature being 
preserved, and concurring in one person and in one 
imooraatz, so that he i-? not d vided or separated into 
two persons, but the only Son, God, the Word, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and one and the same person." At the 
later sessions (ix.-xv ), a number of questions of order, 
supremacy, disc'pline, etc., were settled. But by far 
the most important was the twenty-eighth canon, session 
xv., by wh ch the patriarch of Constantinople was 
placed on equality of authority with the bishop of 
Rome, saving only to the latter priority of honor. The 
Roman delegates protested against this, and, after its 
adoption, T eo constantly opposed it. upon the pl^a that 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 217 

it contradicted the sixth of Nicaea, which assigned the 
second place in dignity to Alexandria; however, in 
spite of his opposition and that of his successors, the 
canon remained and was executed. The acts of this 
council in Greek, with the exception of the anathemas, 
are lost 

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICE. 

This is called the seventh ecumenical council, though 
falsely so, as some assert. It assembled August 17, 786, 
by order of the Empress Irene and her son Constantine. 
Owing to the tumults raised by the Iconoclastic party, 
it was dissolved and reconvened on September 24, ySj. 
(Theophanes, who was present, says that the opening 
of the council was made on October 11.) There were 
present three hundred and seventy-five bishops from 
Greece, Thrace, Natolia, the Isles of the Archipelago, 
Sicily and Italy. Pope Hadrian and all the Oriental 
patriarchs sent legates to represent them in the synod, 
those of Rome taking the first place ; two commissioners 
from the Emperor and Empress also assisted at it. j The 
causes which led to the assembling of this council were 
briefly as follows: The Emperor Leo (and afterward his 
son Constantine Copronymus), offended at the excess of 
veneration often offered to the images of Christ and the 
saints, made a decree against the use of images in any 
way, and caused them everywhere to be removed and 
destroyed. \ These severe and summary proceedings 
raised an opposition almost as violent, and both the 
patriarch of Constantinople (Germanus) and the Pope 
(Hadrian) defended the use of images, declaring them 
to have been always in use in the churches, and showing, 
or attempting to show, the difference between absolute 
and relative worship. However, in a council assembled 



2l8 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

at Constantinople in 754, composed of three hundred 
and thirty-eight bishops, a decree was published against 
the use of images. But at this time Constantine Copro- 
nymus died, and Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, 
induced the Empress Irene and her son Constantine to 
convoke this council, in which the decrees of the coun- 
cil of 754 at Constantinople were set aside. 

The first session was held in the church of St. Sophia. 
Tarasius, the patriarch, spoke first, and exhorted the 
bishops to reject all novelties, and to cling to the tradi- 
tions of the Church. Afier this, ten bishops were 
brought before the council, accused of following the 
party of the Iconoclasts (image-breakers) — three of 
whom, Basil of Ancyra, Theodore of Myra, and Theo- 
dosius of Amorium, recanted, and declared that they 
received with all honor the relics and sacred images of 
Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin, and the saints ; upon 
which they were permitted to take their seats; the 
others were remanded to the next session. The forty- 
second of the apostolic canons, and the eighth of the 
Nicaea, and other canons relating to the reception of 
converted heretics, were read. 

In the second session, the letters of Pope Hadrian to 
the Empress and to the patriarch Tarasius were read. 
The latter then declared his entire concurrence in the 
view taken of the question by the bishop of Rome, viz. : 
that images are to be adored with a "relative worship," 
reserving to God alone faith and the worship of Latria. 
This opinion was warmly applauded by the whole 
council. 

In the third session, the confession of Gregory of Neo- 
Caesarea, the leader of the Iconoclast party, was received, 
and declared by the council to be satisfactory; where- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2IO. 

upon he was, after some discussion, admitted to take his 
seat, and with him the bishops mentioned above. Then 
the letters of Tarasius to the patriarchs of Alexandria, 
Antioch and Jerusalem, and their replies, as well as the 
confession of Theodore of Jerusalem, were read and 
approved. The passages of Holy Scripture relating to 
the cherubim which overshadowed the ark of the cov- 
enant, and which ornamented the interior of the temple, 
were read, together with other passages taken from the 
fathers, showing that God had, in other days, worked 
miracles by means of images. 

In the fifth session, the patriarch Tarasius endeavored 
to show that the innovators, in their attempts to destroy 
all images, were following in the steps of the Jews, 
pagans, Manichaeans, and other heretics. The council 
then came to the conclusion that the images should be 
restored to their usual places, and be carried in proces- 
sions as before. 

In the sixth session, the refutation of the definition 
of faith, made in the council of Iconoclasts at Constan- 
tinople, was read. They had there declared that the 
eucharist was the only image allowed of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; but the fathers of the present synod, in their 
refutation, maintained that the eucharist is nowhere 
spoken of as the image of our Lord's body, but as the 
very body itself. After this, the fathers replied to the 
passages from Holy Scripture and from the fathers 
which the Iconoclasts had adduced in support of their 
views, and, in doing so, insisted chiefly upon perpetual 
tradition and the infallibility of the Church. 

In the seventh session a definition of faith was read, 
which was to this effect: "We decide that the holy 
images, whether painted or graven, or of whatever kind 



220 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

they may be, ought to be exposed to view — whether in 
churches, upon sacred vessels and vestments, upon 
walls, or in private houses, or by the wayside ; since the 
oftener Jesus Christ, his blessed mother, and the saints 
are seen in their images, the more will man be led to 
think of the originals, and to love them. Salutation 
and the adoration of honor ought to be paid to images, 
but not the worship of Latvia (adoration due to God 
alone), which belongs to God alone; nevertheless, it is 
lawful to burn lights before them, and to incense them, 
as is usually done with the cross, the books of the gos- 
pels, and other sacred things, according to the pious use 
of the ancients; for honor so paid to the image is trans- 
mitted to the original which it represents. Such is the 
doctrine of the holy fathers and the tradition of the 
Catholic Church ; and we order that they who dare to 
think or teach otherwise, if bishops or other clerks, shall 
be deposed; if monks or laymen, shall be excommuni- 
cated." This decree was signed by the legates and all 
the bishops. * 

Another session (not recognized either by Greeks or 
Latins) was held at Constantinople, to which place the 
bishops had been cited by the Empress Irene, who was 
present, with her son Constantine, and addressed the 
assembly. The decree of the council and the passages 
from the fathers read at Nicaea were repeated, and the 
former was again subscribed. The council of Constan- 
tinople against image-worship was anathematized, and 
the memory of Germanus of Constantinople, John of 
Damascus, and George of Cyprus, held up to veneration, 
Twenty-two canons of discipline were published. 

No. i insists upon the proper observation of the 
canons of the Church, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 221 

No. 2 forbids to consecrate those who do not know 
the psalter, and will not promise to observe the canons. 

No. 3 forbids princes to elect bishops 

No. 7 forbids to consecrate any church or altar in 
which relics are not contained. 

No. 14 forbids those who are not ordained to read in 
the synaxis from the Ambon. 

Nos. 15 and 16 forbid plurality of benefices, and lux- 
ury in dress among the clergy. 

No. 20 forbids double monasteries, for men and 
women. 

This council was not for a long period recognized in 
France. The grounds upon which the French bishops 
opposed it are contained in the celebrated Caroline 
Books, written by order of Charlemagne. Their chief 
objections were these: I. That no Western bishops, 
except the Pope, by his legates, were present ; 2. That 
the decision was contrary to their custom, which was to 
use images, but not in any way to worship them ; 3. 
That the council was not assembled from all parts of the 
Church, nor was its decision in accordance with that of 
the Catholic Church. The Caroline Books were answered 
by Pope Adrian, but with little effect, so far as the 
Gallican Church was concerned, which continued long 
after this to reject this council in toto. 

LATERAN COUNCILS. 

Lateran Councils is a general name applied to the 
ecclesiastical councils that have been convened in the 
Lateran Church at Rome, but especially to the five 
great councils held there, and regarded by the Roman 
Catholics as ecumenical, viz.: those which were held in 
the years 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215 and 15 12-17. We 



222 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

have only room to notice the most important of all these 
councils, and that with reference to their principal 
enactments and historical connections. 

I. The council of 649, under Martin I., condemned 
the Monothelitic doctrine, or that of one will in the per- 
son of Christ. This view was developed as a continua- 
tion of the Monophysite controversy. The council of 
Chalcedon, in 451, had affirmed the existence of two 
natures in Christ in one person, against the Antiochians, 
the Nestorians and Eutychians. This determination of 
the council did not obtain final supremacy in the Greek 
and Latin Churches till after the time of Justinian, and 
the conflict with it was continued under various forms. 
From the council of Chalcedon till that of Frankfort, in 
793, the church councils, especially, sought to maintain 
the tivofoldness of the nature of Christ asserted at 
Chalcedon, with less regard to the unity, which was at 
the same time established. An early source for the rise 
of Monothelitism appeared in the writings of Pseudo- 
Dionysius the Areopagite, which, originating in the 
fourth century, probably obtained for many centuries 
thereafter great credit in the Church. A Neo-Platonic 
mysticism in these writings seeks to mediate between 
the prevalent church doctrine and Monophysitism (or 
the doctrine of one nature in Christ). "The Areopagite 
is not an outspoken Monophysite, and yet with him the 
human in Christ is only a form of the divine, and there 
is in all the acts of Christ but one mode of operation, the 
theandric energy" (inia theandrikee Jienergeid). This 
expression became a favorite one with all the Monophy- 
site opponents of the Chalcedonian decisions. 

The Monothelitic controversy proper extends from 
623 to 680, at which latter date the synod of Constan- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 223 

tinople gave the most precise definition of two wills in 
the nature of Christ. "The earlier stage of the contro- 
versy, extending to the year 638, c mcerns rather the 
question of one or two energies or modes of working in 
the acts of Christ." The Emperor Heraclius, on the 
occasion of his reconquering the Eastern provinces from 
the Persians in the year 622, and there coming in con- 
tact with certain Monophysite bishops, conceived the 
idea of reconciling them to the Church, by authorizing 
the expression in reference to the acts of Christ which 
was used by Dionysius. Sergius, patriarch of Constan- 
tinople, being consulted, admitted the propriety of the 
expression as one sanctioned by the fathers, and recom- 
mended it to Cyrus, bishop of Phasis, who, being made 
soon after bishop of Alexandria, set up a compromise 
for the Monophysites with the council of Chalcedon on 
nine points. Sophronius, a monk of Alexandria, seri- 
ously objected to the course taken by Sergius, and, on 
being made bishop of Jerusalem,, became so strong an 
opponent that Sergius called to his aid the influence of 
Honorius, bishop of Rome, who expressed himself in 
favor of the view, "rather'one will than of one opera- 
tion," but advised that controversy be avoided. "It is 
unquestionably the fact that the expressed views of 
Honorius, though a Pope, were subsequently condemned 
in council." By occasion of the more decided opposi- 
tion of Sophronius, the Emperor Heraclius, under 
advice of Sergius, issued his edict, the EctJicsis, in 638, 
in which he forbade the use of either expression, "one 
mode of working," or ' ' two modes of working," in a 
controversial way ; but especially prohibited the latter, 
since it is evident that Christ can have but one will, the 
human being subordinate to the divine. This was dis- 



224 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

tinct MonotheMtism. A powerful opponent of this view- 
was the monk Maxim us, whose writings had a control- 
ling- influence with the Lateran Council. "He asserts 
that for the work of redemption a completeness in the 
two natures of Christ is necessary; there must be a 
complete human will. The Logos, indeed, works all 
through the human working and willing. There is a 
theandric energy in his own sense. It is rather as a 
tropos antidoscos, or what was subsequently called the 
communicatio idiomatum. " 

Maximus worked with great zeal against Monothe- 
litism in Rome and in Africa, sending out thence tracts 
on the subject into the Eastern countries. Sophronius 
still carried on the controversy, as also, with him, 
Stephen, bishop of Doria, his pupil. After the death 
of Honorius, in 638, the bishops of Rome were decid- 
edly opposed to Monothelitism, and Martin I., who had 
zealously contended against the view while representa- 
tive of the Roman Church at Constantinople, became, 
when made Pope in 649, the chief pillar of the contrary 
opinion. Advocates of the view enunciated in the 
EctJicsis of Heraclius were Theodore, bishop of Phasan, 
and Pyrrhus, of Constantinople. In 638, the Emperor 
Constans II., under the influence of the patriarch Paul, 
issued his Type [zbitoc, Ttioveoo), which, though not so 
decidedly Monotheliticas the Ectliesis, condemns, under 
threat of the severest penalties, any further controversy 
upon the subject. Without consulting the Emperor, 
Martin I. now convoked this first Lateran Council, in 
which he presided over about one hundred and four 
bishops from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Africa. The 
Pope sought to obtain generally recognition for the 
council, and it was finally everywhere received with the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 225 

five ecumenical councils. Five sessions were held ; the 
writings of the prominent Monothelites were examined 
and condemned; Pope Martin explained the proper 
meaning of Dionysius' term "theandric operation," 
stating that it was designed to signify two operations of 
one person; the EctJicsis of Heraclius and Type of Con- 
stans were condemned ; and the judgment of the council 
pronounced in twenty canons, which "anathematize all 
who do not confess in our Lord Jesus Christ two wills 
and two operations." 

II. The councils of 1 105, 11 12 and 1 1 16, under Pascal 
IT. , concern the contest about investitures between the 
Pope and the Emperor, which was brought to a close in 
the council of 1 123, called and presided over by Calix- 
tus II. This body consisted of three hundred bishops 
and six hundred abbots, all of the Latin Church. The 
investiture contest, which began as early as 1054, when, 
by mutual degrees of excommunication, the breach 
between the Eastern and Western Churches was made 
final, arose from the claim made by the German emper- 
ors to an inheritance of rights, exercised by the Greek 
emperors, concerning the appointment of candidates to 
ecclesiastical offices, and their investiture with the right 
to hold church property as subjects of the empire. 
Under the new German Empire, from Otho the Great 
to Henry IV., 936-1056, the popes themselves were 
confirmed in their seats by the Emperor. Henry III. 
obtained from the Council of Sutry, which was held 
near Rome, in the midst of his own army, in 1046, the 
power of nominating the popes, without intervention of 
clergy or people. The influence of Hildebrand was now 
felt — an influence which he had begun to exert from the 
time of Leo IX., in 1048, and which secured from 

16 



226 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

Nicolas II. (1063) a decree transferring the election of 
popes to a conclave of cardinals. Hildebrand, as 
Gregory VII., maintained a celebrated contest with 
Henry IV., to whom, in 1075, he forbade all power of 
investiture, excommunicating the Emperor the next 
year, and causing him to do penance at Canossa. With 
his victorious campaign in Italy (1080-83) Henry drove 
the Pope into exile at Salerno, where he soon after died. 
His immediate successors, however, were such as he 
had designated for the post, and were the inheritors of 
his doctrines and plans for the supremacy of the Church. 
Urban II. sent forth an encyclical, declaring his adhe- 
sion to the principles of Gregory — the Dictates Gregorii; 
and Pascal II. (1099-1118), who had been one of Greg- 
ory's cardinals, showed more zeal than firmness in the 
same course. In the Lateran Council under the Pope 
(1 105), an oath of obedience to the Pope was taken by 
the clergy, and a promise rendered to affirm whatever 
he and the Church in council should affirm. The Count 
De Meulan and his confederates were excommunicated 
for having encouraged the King of England in his con- 
duct concerning investitutes. Henry V., who, in the 
rebellion against his father, was encouraged by Pascal, 
would nevertheless yield nothing on becoming emperor 
(1105) m the matter of investitures; his example being 
followed in this respect by France and England. Henry 
marched into Italy and imprisoned the Pope in the year 
1 1 1 1, forcing from him the concession of rendering back 
to the Emperor the fiefs of the bishops, on condition 
that there should be no imperial interference with the 
elections. For his weakness in this and in other points, 
the Pope was bitterly reproached, and the council of 
1 1 12 revoked all these concessions and excommunicated 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 227 

the Emperor. Notwithstanding- the rebellion of his 
German subjects, Henry collected an army and invaded 
Italy anew in 1116. The council convoked the same 
year, thereupon renewed the revocation of the conces- 
sions which Pascal had formerly made, and anathema- 
tized the Emperor. At last, the German people, weary 
of the conflict between Church and State, brought a 
peaceful compromise in the concordat at the imperial 
Diet of Worms, in 11 22. The principles of this con- 
cordat were adopted by the council of 1123. The terms 
of the compact are as follows: 

"The Emperor surrenders to God, to St. Peter and 
Paul, and to the Catholic Church, all right of investiture 
by king and staff. He grants that elections and ordi- 
nances in all churches shall take place freely in accord- 
ance with ecclesiastical laws. The Pope agrees that the 
election of German prelates shall be had in the presence 
of the Emperor, provided it is without violence or 
simony. In case any election is disputed, the Emperor 
shall render assistance to the legal party, with the advice 
of the archbishop and the bishops. The person elected 
is invested with the imperial fief by the royal scepter 
pledged for the execution of everything required by 
law. Whoever is consecrated shall also receive in like 
manner his investiture from other parts of the empire 
with six months." (Hase, Church History, p. 200; 
Gieseler, Eccles. Hist., hi., 181 sq.) The Pope here 
rr.ade considerable concessions in form, but actually, 
through his influence, obtained all power at the elections. 
The council of 11 23 also renewed the grant of indul- 
gences promulgated by Urban II. in promotion of the 
first crusade in 1095, and decreed the celibacy of the 
clergy. Twenty-two canons of discipline were enacted. 



228 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

III. The council of 1 1 39, under Innocent II., con- 
demned the anti-pope Anacletus II., with his adherents, 
and deposed all who had received office under him. On 
the same day with the installation of Innocent II., in 
1 1 30, Peter of Leon, a cardinal, and grandson of a rich 
Jewish banker, had been proclaimed Pope, as Anacletus 
II., by a majority of the cardinals Innocent took 
refuge in France, where he was supported by the king. 
His cause was very warmly espoused by Bernard of 
Clairvaux, through whose influence chiefly Innocent 
recovered his position in Italy, and marched into Rome 
triumphantly with Lothaire II, in 1 1 36. Anacletus 
died in 1138, and a successor was chosen by his party 
only with the purpose of making peace. Roger of 
Sicily had supported Anacletus, and was on this 
account condemned in the council of 1139, though the 
origin of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies belongs to 
the same year, Roger having taken Innocent prisoner, 
and having compelled the Pope to bestow upon him the 
investiture of this kingdom. At this council Arnold of 
Brescia was also condemned. This was a young clergy- 
man of the city of Brescia, a disciple of Abelard, who, 
inspired by the free philosophical spirit of his master, 
devoted himself to the promotion of practical reform in 
Church and State. A marked spirit of political inde- 
pendence was manifesting itself about this time in 
Lombardy, as an inheritance from the old Roman munic 
ipalities established there. The popes, from the days 
of Leo IX., had themselves inspired movements of 
ecclesiastical reform. Pascal II. had admitted that the 
secular power of the bishops interfered with their spirit- 
ual duties. Bernard, though a zealous opponent of 
Arnold, yet writes as follows in his Coutemplattojis on the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 229 

Papacy: "Who can mention the place where one of the 
apostles ever held a trial, decided disputes about 
boundaries or portioned out lands?" "I read that the 
apostles stood before judgment seats, not sat on them." 

Arnold preached with great zeal against the political 
power and wealth of the clergy. "The Church ought 
rather to rejoice," he said, " in an apostolic poverty." 
He was driven successively from Italy, France and 
Switzerland, but in 11 39 was recalled to Rome by the 
populace, who sought to revive the sovereignty, the 
State, established a Senate, limited the Pope to the 
exercise of spiritual power, and the possession of volun- 
tary offerings, and invited the German emperor to make 
Rome his capital. Arnold and his "politicians" at 
Rome thus gave Pope Innocent and his immediate suc- 
cessors — Lucius II., Eugenius III , and Adrian IV. — 
more trouble than any political movements elsewhere. 
This condemnation at the council did not effectually 
diminish his power. When, however, Adrian, in 1 154, 
put the city of Rome under ban, and prohibited all 
public worship, Arnold was abandoned by the Senate, 
sacrificed by Frederick I., and hung at Rome in 1 1 5 5 , 
his body being burned and thrown into the river Tiber. 
Among the canons of the council, the twenty third con- 
demns the heresy of the Manichaeans, as the followers 
of Peter de Brins were called This heresy was attrib- 
uted to the early Waldensians in France and elsewhere, 
arising partly from their ascetic mode of life. About 
one thousand prelates were present at this council ; 
thirty canons of discipline were published, and among 
them reaffirmations of former canons against simony 
and concubinage in the clergy. 

IV. The council of 1179, under Alexander III., num- 



23O HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

bering two hundred and eighty, mostly Latin bishops, 
was called to correct certain abuses which had arisen 
during the long schism just brought to a close by the 
Peace of Venice, 1177. Until near the end of the 
twelfth century the popes were hard pressed by Hohen- 
stauffen emperors. It was the contest of Ghibelline and 
Guelph. Frederick I. had taken umbrage at the use of 
the term " beneficium," in a letter addressed to him by 
Adrian IV., about the rudeness of German knights to 
pilgrims visiting Rome, as if the Pope meant to imply 
that the imperial authority had been conferred by him. 
The Emperor marched into Italy, and other letters were 
interchanged between him and the Pope, when, upon 
the death of Adrian, in 11 59, the two parties — the 
hierarchic and the moderate among the cardinals — 
chose two opposing popes, viz. : Alexander III. and 
Victor IV. The Emperor's Council, called at Pavia in 
1 160, recognized the latter. Pascal III. and Calixtus III. 
followed at the imperial dictation, with but little influ- 
ence. Alexander, from his refuge in France, enjoyed 
great popularity. He had on his side the Lombard 
League. The cause of Frederick was defended by the 
lawyers of Bologna, who ascribed to him unlimited 
power, to the prejudice of the people. Defeated at 
Legnano, in 11 76, the Emperor subscribed, at the dicta- 
tion of Alexander, the Peace of Venice, the provisions 
of which were based on the Concordat of Worms. The 
first -and most important of the twenty-seven canons 
established by this council, which were mostly disciplin- 
ary, provides that henceforth ''the election of the 
popes shall be confined to the college of cardinals, and 
two-thirds of the votes shall be required to make a law- 
ful election, instead of a majority only, as heretofore." 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 23 I 

It was by this council also that the "errors and impie- 
ties " of the VValdenses and Albigenses were declared 
heretical. At the unimportant council of 1 167 Pope 
Alexander excommunicated Frederick I. 

V. The council of 12 15, under Innocent III., was the 
most important of all the Lateran Councils It is usually 
styled the Fourth Lateran. It continued in session from 
November 1 1 to November 30, there being present 
seventy-one archbishops, four hundred and twelve 
bishops, eight hundred abbots, the patriarchs of Con- 
stantinople and Jerusalem, and the legates- of other 
patriarchs and crowned heads. The Pope opened the 
convocation with a sermon on Luke xxii. 15, relating to 
the recovery of the Holy Land and the reformation of 
the Church. The remarkable power of Innocent III. if 
displayed in his influence over this council, which was 
submissive to all his wishes, and receiv d the seventy 
canons proposed by him. The papal prerogatives 
attained their greatest supremacy in Innocent, whose 
pontificate extended from 1 198 to 12 16. The bull, Unam 
Sanctam, of Boniface VIII , directed against Philip the 
Fair in 1302, marks the limit from which the power of 
the popes evidently began to decline. Innocent III., a 
man of great personal influence, of marked ability as a 
writer and orator, bold, crafty, and ever watchful of the 
affairs of Church and State, had his eye on all that 
transpired through his legates. The chief objects which 
his pontificate sought were first, "the strengthening of 
the States of the Church; second, separation of the two 
Sicilies from all dependence on the German Empire; 
third, the liberation of Italy from all foreign control ; 
fourth, the exercise of guardianship over the confeder- 
acy of its States; fifth, the liberation of the Oriental 



232 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

Church ; sixth, the extermination of heretics, and, sev- 
enth, the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline." (Hase, 
Church Hist., p. 207.) 

Hitherto England, Germany and France had consti- 
tuted a balance of power against the Pope, but under 
Innocent the two former, as well as Italy, submitted to 
the claims of the pseudo-Isodorean decretals. France 
was early laid under interdict (1200), on account of 
Philip Augustus' repudiation of Ingeburge and the French 
bishop's approval of the act, while John of England was 
deprived o\ his realm, to receive it back (in 1 213) only 
as a fief of Rome: Deciding at first for Otto IV., the 
Guelph, against the Hohenstauffen Philip, in Germany. 
Innocent subsequently secured from the council the 
recognition of Frederick II., vainly seeking in this his 
German policy to free Italy entirely from the power of 
the Emperor. The famous Seventy Constitutions of 
Innocent, if not discussed in a conciliatory manner by 
the bishops, or passed with every form of enactment, 
were nevertheless regarded as the canons of the council, 
so recognized by the Council of Trent, and by church 
authorities of the intervening age, and they have consti- 
tuted a fundamental law for many well-known practices 
of the Church. The first of these canons asserts the 
Catholic faith in the unity of God n gainst the Manichaean 
sects. It also, for the first time, makes the doctrine of 
substantiation, in the use of this express term, an article 
of faith. "The body and blood of Jesus Christ in the 
sacrament of the altar are truly contained under the 
species of bread and wine, the bread being, by the 
divine omnipotence, transubstantiated into his body, and 
the wine into his blood." The second canon condemns 
the treatise of Joachim, the prophet of Calabria, which 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 233 

he wrote against Peter Lombard on the subject of the 
Trinity. 

The third canon is of great importance, furnishing the 
basis for the crusade against the Albigenses, and for all 
severities of a like character on the part of the Romish 
Church. It "anathematizes all heretics who hold any- 
thing in opposition to the preceding exposition of faith, 
and enjoins that, after condemnation, they shall be 
delivered over to the secular arm; also excommunicates 
all who receive, protect or maintain heretics, and threat- 
ens with deposition all bishops who do not use their 
utmost endeavors to clear their diocese of them." 
(Landon, Manual of Councils, p. 295.) 

The fo?trth canon invites the Greeks to unite with and 
submit themselves to the Romish Church. The fifth 
canon regulates the order of precedence of the patriarchs: 
1. Rome; 2. Constantinople; 3. Alexandria; 4 Antioch; 
5. Jerusalem; and permits these several patriarchs to 
give the pall to the archbishops of their dependencies, 
exacting from themselves a profession of faith and of 
obedience to the Roman See, when they receive the pall 
from the Pope. The sixth to the twentieth, inclusive, are 
of rrrnor importance to the Christian world. (Landon, 
p. 296.) The twenty first canon enjoins "all the faithful 
of both sexes, having arrived at years of discretion, to 
confess all their sins at least once a year to their proper 
priest, and to communicate at Easter." This is the first 
canon known which orders sacramental confession gen- 
erally, and may have been occasioned by the teaching 
of the Waldenses, that neither confession nor satisfac- 
tion was necessary in order to obtain remission of sin. 
From the words with which it begins it is known as the 
canon "Omnis iitriusque sexils," and was solemnly 



234 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

reaffirmed by the Council of Trent The canons (given 
completely by Landon, Manual of Councils, p 293, sq.) 
in general constitute a body of full and severe disciplin- 
ary enactments. This council reaffirmed and extended 
the "Truce of God" on plenary indulgence which had 
been previously proclaimed in behalf of the Eastern 
crusades, and fixed the time, June I, and the place 
Sicily, as a rendezvous for another crusade. 

This council confirmed Simon de Montfort in posses- 
sion of lands which the crusaders had obtained by papal 
confiscation from the Waldenses, and decreed the entire 
extirpation of the heresy. The Waldenses or Albigenses 
in the south of France were the followers of Peter Waldo, 
a wealthy citizen of Lyons, who, from religious princi 
pie, adopted a life of poverty. His adherents were also 
called Leonistse and "poor men of Lyons " They were 
allied in their sentiments to the Vaudois of the Pied- 
montese valleys, with whom they became united for 
mutual defense. They protested against these points in 
the doctrine of the Romish Church : First, transubstam 
tiation ; second, the sacraments of confirmation, confes- 
sion and marriage; third, the invocation of saints; fourth, 
the worship of images; fifth, the temporal power of th( 
clergy. A crusade had been instituted against them b) 
the papal power in 1 178. Innocent sought to win then- 
over and make monks of them by establishing, in 1201, 
the order of " Poor Catholics. " Unsuccessful in this-, he 
confiscated their lands to the feudal lords : and estab 
lished an inquisition among them under the direction of 
Dominic, which was formally sanctioned by the council 
under consideration. The warfare against them, incited 
and directed by the monks of Citeaux, was allowed 
by Philip Augustus. Count Raymond, of Toulouse, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 235 

espoused the cause of his persecuted vassals. The papal 
legate, Peter of Castelman, sent to convert the Walden- 
ses, was murdered by Raymond, whose dominions were 
thereupon assaulted, in 1209, by a fiercer crusade of 
so-called '-Christian Pilgrims," led on by Simon de 
Montfort and Arnold, the Abbot of Citeaux. The Count 
of Toulouse submitted, but a bloody warfare was prose- 
cuted against Raymond Roger, viscount of Beziers and 
Albi, and subsequently two hundred towns and castles, 
within the boundaries of the two counts, were granted 
to the successful Simon de Montfort. A rebellion, how- 
ever, against his power deprived him of all; but Ray- 
mond of Toulouse, who appeared at the council of 12 15, 
obtained no favor, and his territory was declared to be 
alienated from him forever. 

VI. The Lateran Council of 1512-1517, under Julius 
II. and Leo X. , was convened for the "reformation of 
abuses," for the condemnation of the Council of Pisa, 
"and attained its most important result in the abolition 
of the Pragmatic Sanction." France, under Louis XII., 
had obtained great military successes in Italy by the 
League of Cambray, formed in 1509 against Venice. In 
the interests of France, and by the friendship of some 
of the cardinals, Louis XII. summoned a Church Coun- 
cil at Pisa, November, 15 11, which in 15 12 was moved 
to Milan, but was entirely fruitless of results, being 
dissolved by the presence of the Pope's army. Julius I., 
though at first jealous of Venice, had nevertheless, 
aroused by the successes of the French general, formed 
the Holy Alliance with Venice, Spain, England and 
Switzerland, and now, at the head of his army, drove 
the French beyond the Alps and himself summoned a 
council at the Lateran, May 10, 15 12. This council 



236 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

extended over twelve sessions, until March, 15 17. The 
Bishop of Guerk had actively promoted the summoning 
of the council, and attended as representative of the 
German Emperor. All the acts of the Council of Pisa 
were at once annulled. Julius having died in February, 
15 13, Leo X presided over the sixth session. 

At the eighth session, in December, 15 13, Louis 
XII., through his ambassador, declared his adhesion to 
this Council of the Lateran. At the eleventh session, 
in December, 15 16, the bull was read which, in place of 
the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), wherein 
France accepted the decisions of the Basle Council, in so 
far as they were consistent with the liberties of the 
Gallican Church, substituted the concordat agreed upon 
this year (15 16) between Leo X and Francis I. Through 
hope of increasing his power in Italy, Francis largely sac 
rificed the liberties of the Church. Several of the articles 
of the Pragmatic were retain eel, but most of them were 
altered or abolished. The first article was entirely con- 
trary to the Pragmatic, which had re established the 
right of election, while the concordat declares that the 
chapters of the cathedrals in France shall no longer pro- 
ceed to elect the bishop in case of vacancy, but that the 
king shall name a proper person, whom the Pope shall 
nominate to the vacant see. The concordat, on account 
especially of this provision, met with great opposition 
in the parliament, universities and the church at Paris. 
It was a great advance of the Papacy against the liber- 
ties of France. (Janus, Pope and Council, xxviii. and 
xxix ) 

Neither this council, nor the other four, viz.: those of 
1123, 1 1 39, 1 1 79 and 1215, styled ecumenical by the 
Romish Church, can be properly regarded as such. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 237 

Some writers mention as the sixth Lateran the council 
convened by Pope Benedict XIII. on the bull Unigenitus, 
and for the purpose of general reform in the Church. 

THE COUNCIL OF LYONS. 

Lyons is a city of France, and is situated three hun- 
dred and sixteen miles southeast of Paris, and is noted 
in ecclesiastical history as the seat of two ecumenical 
councils, the first of which was held in 1245, consisting 
of one hundred and forty bishops, and convened for the 
purpose of promoting the crusades, restoring ecclesi- 
astical discipline, and dethroning Frederick II., Emperor 
of Germany. It was also decreed at this council that 
cardinals should wear red hats. 

At the second council, held in 1274. there were five 
hundred bishops present and about one thousand 
" inferior clergy."' Its principal object was the reunion 
of the Greek and Latin Churches. The first of these 
councils was held under the pontificate of Innocent IV., 
and the second under the pontificate of Gregory X. 

COUNCILS OF VIENNE. 

Vienne is a city of Dauphine, France, where numerous 
church councils were held. 

I. The first of which mention is made was held in 
474; of its transactions nothing is known beyond the 
fact that it sanctioned the solemn observance of the 
three days preceding Ascension Day, which Bishop 
Mamercus, of Vienne, had ordered. 

II. The one held in 870 simply confirmed the privi- 
leges bestowed upon a monastery. 

III. Held in 892, by order of Pope Formosus, whose 
two legates, Pascal and John, presided. Several bishops 
were present, and the following canons were published: 



238 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

I, 2, Excommunicate those who seize the property 
of the Church, or maltreat clerks. 

4 Forbids laymen to present to churches without the 
consent of the bishop of the diocese ; also forbids them 
to take any present from those whom they present. — 
Mansi, Concil. ix., 433. 

IV. Held in 907 ; was concocted by Archbishop 
Alexander, of Vienne, and adjusted a dispute between 
Abbots Aribert and Barnard respecting the income 
receipts of monasteries. 

V. Held in 11 12 by Archbishop Guido ; excommuni- 
cated Emperor Henry V., because he claimed the right 
of episcopal investiture, and revoked the treaty of mi, 
which conferred such right upon the crown. 

VI. Held in 11 19; was called by Pope GelasiusII., 
who had again excommunicated Henry V., on the occa- 
sion of his setting up an anti-pope in the person of 
Gregory VIII.; but nothing whatever concerning the 
transactions of this synod is known. 

VII. Held in 11 24; was incited by Pope Calixtus II., 
and called by Archbishop Peter, of Vienne; legislated 
with reference to the securing of ecclesiastical privileges 
and possessions. 

VIII. Held in 1142; was chiefly concerned with the 
election of a new bishop. 

IX. Held in 1164, at which Archbishop Reginald, of 
Cologne, vainly endeavored to secure a recognition of 
Paschal III., whom the Emperor Frederick had endorsed. 

X. Held in 1199, by the Cardinal-legate Peter of 
Capua, for the purpose of promulgating the decree of 
Pope Innocent III., which punished the king, Philip 
Augustus, with excommunication on account of his 
renunciation of Inneburgis, his lawful consort, and his 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 239 

subsequent marriage with Agnes of Meran. — Mansi, 
Concil. xi. , 11. 

XI. Held in 1289; is barely mentioned in the records, 
and some authorities deny that it was held. 

XII. Held in 131 1; known as the fifteenth ecumeni- 
cal council, and the only one of the series to which 
attaches any considerable importance. It was origin- 
ally ordered, by a papal bull of 1308, to meet October 
1, 1 3 10, but was subsequently postponed for one year. 
The council finally convened under the presidency of 
Pope Clement V., October 16, 1311. The number of 
prelates present is fixed by some at one hundred and 
fourteen, and by others at three hundred, including the 
patriarchs of the Latin Rite of Alexandria and Antioch. 
It discussed methods for preserving the purity of the 
faith, which was impaired by the heretical influence of 
John of Olivia, and of the Fratricelli, Dolcinists, Beg- 
hards and Beguins; also the aid to be afforded the Holy 
Land; the reform of ecclesiastical discipline; and espe- 
cially the disposition to be made of the Order of Knights 
Templar. The decision abrogated the Order of Tem- 
plars ; declared the legitimacy of the late Pope Boniface 
VIII., and his freedom from the crimes charged against 
him ; conceded titles for six years to the kings of France, 
England and Navarre, in order that they might organize 
a crusade ; and regulated the government of the begging 
friars and similar matters. Most of the decrees which 
have to do with matters of doctrine and discipline are 
contained in the so called Clementines, and were first 
promulgated by Pope John XXII. — Landon, Manual of 
Councils, 5 v 

XIII. Held in 1557; it determined several que-tions 
of church discipline ; discussed the use of sermons as a 



240 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

means of instructing the people; forbade the admission 
of strangers to the pulpits; demanded the rendition of 
heretics ; and prohibited merry-makings on feast-days 
and association with suspected persons ; gave directions 
concerning the tonsure and garb of priests ; denied to 
monks and nuns the privilege of leaving their convents, 
etc. (Martine, Thcsaur. Novus Anccdot. — Lutet Par. 
1717, iv., 446 sq.) 

COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 

This council was summoned at the dictation of Pope 
John XXIII. , in accordance with the writ of the 
Emperor Sigismund. and continued its sessions from 
1414 to 141 8./^ One of its professed objects was to put 
an end to the schism which had lasted for thirty years, 
and which was caused by the several claimants for the 
pontificate. ^At this time, besides John (Balthasar 
Cossa), t\v > others claimed the title of Pope, viz.: Pedro 
of Luna, a native of Catalonia, who styled himself Bene- 
dict XIII , and Angelo Corrario, a Venetian, who 
assumed the name of Gregory XII. Another object of 
the council was to take cognizance of the so called her- 
esies of Huss and Wickliffe. The council was called to 
meet at Constance on the festival of All-Saints, in 1414, 
and so great was the influx of people, that it w r as esti- 
mated that not less than thirty thousand horses were 
brought to Constance, which may give some idea of the 
immense multitude of human beings. It is stated that 
during the session, the Emperor, the Pope, twenty 
princes, one hundred and forty counts, more than twenty 
cardinals, seven patriarchs, twenty archbishops, ninety- 
one bishops, six hundred other clerical dignitaries, and 
about four thousand priests, were present at this cele- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 24 1 

brated convocation. The pretended heresies of Wick- 
liffe and Huss were here condemned, and the latter, 
notwithstanding the assurances of safety given him by 
the Emperor, was burnt at the stake July 6, 141 5, and 
his friend and companion, Jerome of Prague, met with 
the same fate, May 30, 14.16. The three popes were 
formally deposed, and Martin V. was legally chosen to 
the chair of St. Peter ; but instead of furthering the 
Emperor's wishes for a reformation in the affairs of the 
Church, he thwarted his plans, and nothing was accom- 
plished till the council of Basle. At this council the 
question was very warmly agitated whether the authority 
of an ecumenical council is greater than that of the Pope 
or not? Gerson "proved (so it is asserted) that in cer- 
tain cases the Church, or, which is the same thing, an 
ecumenical council, can assemble without the command 
or consent of the Pope, even supposing him to have 
been canonically elected, and to live respectably." 
These peculiar cases he states to be : " 1. If the Pope, 
being accused, and brought into a position requiring the 
opinion of the Church, refuses to convoke a council for 
the purpose. 2. When important matters, concerning 
the government of the Chui;ch, are in agitation, requir- 
ing to be set at rest by an ecumenical council, which, 
nevertheless, the Pope refuses to convoke." (Herzog, 
Real Encykl., hi., 144, and many other authorities.) 

THE COUNCIL AT BASLE. 

This council was called by Pope Martin V., and con- 
tinued by Eugenius IV. It was opened July 23, 143 1, 
by Cardinal Julian, and closed May 16, 1443, forty five 
sessions in all having been held, of which the first twenty- 
five were acknowledged by the Gallican Church. The 

17 



242 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

Ultramontanes reject it altogether, but "on grounds 
utterly untenable," it is said. The council, in its 
thirtieth session, declared that "a general council is 
superior to a pope; " and. in 1437, Eugenius transferred 
its sessions to Ferrara. The council refused to obey, 
and continued its sessions at Basle, the capital of a can- 
ton of the same name in Switzerland. The principal 
objects for which this council was called were the refor- 
mation of the Church, and the reunion of the Greek 
with the Roman Church. "Many of its resolutions 
were admirable both in spirit and form ; and had the 
council been allowed to continue its sessions, and had 
the Pope sanctioned its proceedings, there would have 
ensued a great and salutary change in the Roman 
Church." But the power of the Papacy was at stake, 
and the reform was suppressed. Its most important 
acts were as follows : 

la the first session, December 7, 1431, the decree of the council of 
Constance, concerning the celebration of a general council after five 
and after seven years, was read, together with the bull of Martin V. 
convoking the council, in which he named Julian, president; also the 
letter of Eugene IV. to the latter upon the subject ; afterward the six 
objects proposed in calling the council were enumerated: 1. The 
extirpation of heresy. 2. The reunion of all Christian persons with 
the Catholic Church. 3. To afford instruction in the true faith. 4. 
To appease the wars between Christian princes. 5. To reform the 
Church in its head and in its members G. To re-establish, as far as 
possible, the ancient discipline of the Church. 

It soon appeared that Pope Eugene was determined 
to break up the council, which took vigorous measures 
of defense. In the second session (Feb. 15, 1432) it was 
"declared that the synod, being assembled in the name 
of the Holy Spirit, and representing the Church mili- 
tant, derives its power directly from our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and that all persons, of whatever rank or dignity, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 243 

not excepting the Roman Pontiff himself, are bound to 
obey it ; and that any person, of whatever rank or con- 
dition, not excepting the Pope, who shall refuse to obey 
the laws and decrees of this or any other general council, 
shall be put to penance and punished." 

In the third session (April 29, 1432) Pope Eugene was 
summoned to appear before the council within three 
months. In August the Pope sent legates to vindicate 
his authority over the council; and in the eighth session 
(December 18) it was agreed that the Pope should be 
proceeded against canonically, in order to declare him 
contumacious, and to visit him with the canonical 
penalty ; two months' delay, however, being granted 
him within which to revoke his bull for the dissolution 
of the council. 

On the 1 6th of January, 1433, deputies arrived from 
the Bohemians, demanding (1) liberty to administer the 
Eucharist in both kinds ; (2) that all mortal sin, and 
especially open sin, should be repressed, corrected and 
punished according to God's law; (3) that the Word of 
God should be preached faithfully by the bishops, and 
by such deacons as were fit for it ; (4) that the clergy 
should not possess authority in temporal matters. It 
was afterward agreed that the clergy in Bohemia and 
Moravia should be allowed to give the cup to the laity; 
but no reconciliation was effected. In April, 1433, 
Eugene signified his willingness to send legates to the 
council to preside in his name, but the council refused 
his conditions. In the twelfth session (July 14, 1433,) 
the Pope, by a decree, was required to renounce within 
sixty days his design of transferring the council from 
Basle, upon pain of being pronounced contumacious. 
In return, Eugene, irritated by these proceedings, issued 



244 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

a bull, annulling all the decrees of the council against 
himself. Later in autumn, the Pope, in fear of the 
council, supported as it was by the Emperor and by 
France, agreed to an accommodation. He chose four 
cardinals to preside with Julian at the council; he revoked 
all the bulls which he had issued for its dissolution, and 
published one according to the form sent him by the 
council. [Session XIV.] It was to the effect that, 
although he had broken up the council at Basle lawfully 
assembled, nevertheless, in order to appease the disorders 
which had arisen, he declared the council to have been 
lawfully continued from its commencement, and that it 
would be so to the end ; that he approved of all that it 
had offered and decided, and that he declared the bull 
for its dissolution, which he had issued, to be null and 
void; thus, as Bossuet observes, setting the council 
above himself, since, in obedience to its order, he 
revoked his own decree, made with all the authority of 
his pontifical see. In spite of this forced yielding, 
Eugene never ceased plotting for the dissolution of the 
council. In subsequent sessions earnest steps were 
taken toward reform ; the annates and taxes (the Pope's 
chief revenues) were abrogated ; the papal authority 
over chapter elections was restricted ; citations to Rome 
on minor grounds were forbidden, etc. These move- 
ments increased the hatred of the papal party, to which, 
at last, Cardinal Julian was won over. The proposed 
reunion of the Greek and Roman Churches made it 
necessary to appoint 4 a place of conference with the 
Greeks. The cotinc 1 proposed Basle or Avignon; the 
papal party demanded an Italian city. The latter, in 
the minority, left Basle, and Eugene called an opposi- 
tion council to meet at Ferrara in 1437. After Julian's 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 245 

departure the Cardinal Archbishop of Aries presided 
In the thirty-first session, Jan. 24. 1438, the council 
declared the Pope Eugene contumac ous, suspendeJ him 
from the exercise of all jurisdiction, temporal or spiritual, 
an ! pronounced all that he should do to be null and 
void. In the twenty-fourth session, June 25, 1439, sen- 
tence of deposition was pronounced against Eugene, 
making use of the strongest possible terms. France. 
England and Germany disapproved of this sentence. On 
October 30, Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, was elected Pope, 
and took the name of Felix V. Alphonso, King of 
Aragon, the Queen of Hungary, and the Dukes of 
Bavaria and Austria recognized Felix, as also did the 
Universities of Germany, Paris and Cracow; but France, 
England and Scotland, while they acknowledged the 
authority of the council of Basle, continued to recognize 
Eugene as the lawful Pope. Pope Eugene dying four 
years after, Nicholas V. was elected in his stead, and 
recognized by the whole Church, whereupon Felix V. 
renounced the pontificate in 1449. and thus the schism 
ended. (Mansi, vols. 29 to 31; Landon, Manual of 
Councils, 74; Palmer, On the Church ; Mosheim, Church 
History; Ranke, History of Papacy, i., 36, 243. 

COUNCIL OF TRENT. 

This council is regarded by the Roman Catholic 
Church as the last in the order of assemblies known as 
ecumenical or general, and as the great repository of 
all the doctrinal judgments of that ecclesiasical body 
on the chief points at issue with the Reformers of the 
sixteenth century./ " Very early in the conflict with Leo 
X., Luther had appealed from the Pope to a general 
council ; and after the failure of the first attempts at an 



246 1IST0RY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

adjustment of the controversies, a general desire grew 
up in the Church for the convocation of a general coun- 
cil, in which the true sense of the Church upon the con- 
troversies which had been raised, might be finally and 
decretorially settled. Another, and, to many, a still 
more pressing motive for desiring a council, was the 
wish to bring about a reform of the alleged abuses as 
well of the Court of Rome as of the domestic discipline 
and government of local churches, to which the move- 
ment of the Reformers was in part at least ascribed. But 
the measures for convoking a council were long delayed, 
owing partly, it has been alleged, to the intrigues of 
the party who were interested in the maintenance of 
those profitable abuses, and especially of the officials of 
the Roman court, including the cardinals, and even the 
popes themselves ; but partly also the jealousies, and 
even the actual conflicts, which took place between 
Charles V. and the King of France, whose joint action 
was absolutely indispensable to the success of any 
ecclesiastical assembly." (Chambers' Encyclopedia, vol. 
ix., p. 533.) 

It was not till the pontificate of Paul III. (15 34- 1549) 
that the design assumed a practical character. One of 
the great difficulties was that in regard to a place of 
meeting. In these discussions much time was lost; and 
without entering into detail, it is sufficient to say that 
the assembly did not actually meet till December 13, 
1545, at which time four archbishops, twenty-two 
bishops, five generals of orders, and the representatives 
of the Emperor and of the King of the Romans, 
assembled at Trent, a city of the Tyrol. The number 
of prelates afterward increased. The Pope was repre- 
sented by three legates, who presided in his name, viz., 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. Itf 

Cardinals del Monte, Cervino and Pole. The first three 
sessions were devoted to preliminaries. It was not till 
the fourth session (April, 1546) that the really important 
work of the council began. It was decided, after much 
disputation, that the doctrinal questions and the ques- 
tions of reformation should both be proceeded with 
simultaneously. Accordingly, the discussions on both 
subjects were continued through the fourth, fifth, sixth 
and seventh sessions, in all of which "matters of great 
moment were decided;" when a division between the 
Pope and the Emperor, who, by the victory of Miir.lberg, 
had become all-powerful in the Empire, made the 
former desirous to transfer the council to some place 
beyond the reach of Charles' arbitrary dictation. The 
appearance of the plague at Trent furnished a cause for 
removal, and in the eighth session a decree was passed 
(March 11, 1547) transferring the council to Bologna. 

The change of place was opposed by the bishops who 
were in the imperial interest, and the division which 
ensued had the effect of suspending all practical action. 
In the meantime, Paul III. died. Julius III., who had, 
as Cardinal del Monte, presided as legate in the council, 
took measures for its resumption at Trent, where it 
again assembled, May 1, 155 1. The sessions 9-12, held 
partly at Bologna, and partly at Trent, were spent in 
discussions regarding the suspension and removal; but 
in the thirteenth session the real work of the assembly 
was renewed, and was continued, slowly, but with great 
care, till the sixteenth session, when, on account of the 
apprehended insecurity of Trent, the passes of the Tyrol 
having fallen into the hands of Maurice of Saxony, the 
sittings were again suspended for two years. 

But the suspension was destined to continue for no 



248 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

less than nine years. Julius III. died in 1555, and was 
followed rapidly to the grave t, his successor (who had 
also been his fellow-legate in th . council as Cardinal 
Cervina) Marcellus II. The pontificate of Paul IV. 
( T 555 _I 559) was a very troubled one, as well on account 
of internal dissensions as owing to the abdication of 
Charles V.; nor was it till the accession of Pius IV. 
( r 5 59~ x 565) that the bishops and legates were again 
brought together to the number of one hundred and 
two, under the presidency of Cardinal Gonzaga, reopen- 
ing their deliberations with the seventeenth session. 
All the succeeding sessions were "devoted to matters 
of the highest importance," among which may be men- 
tioned such doctrines and practices as (1) communion 
under one kind, (2) the sacrifice of the mass, (3) the 
sacrament of orders, (4) the nature and origin of the 
grades of the hierarchy, (5) marriage and the many ques- 
tions relating to it. These grave discussions occupied 
the sessions 17-24, and lasted till November 11, 1563. 
Much anxiety was expressed on the part of many bish- 
ops to draw the council to a conclusion, in order that 
they might be able to return to their sees in a time so 
critical ; and accordingly, as the preliminary discussions 
regarding most of the remaining questions had already 
taken place, decrees were prepared in special congrega- 
tions comprising almost all the remaining subjects of 
controversy, as (1) purgatory, (2) invocation of saints, 
(3) images, (4) relics and (5) indulgences. Several 
other matters, rather of detail than of doctrinal princi- 
ple, were referred to the Pope, to be by him examined 
and arranged ; and on the 3d and 4th of December, 
1563, these important decrees were finally read, approved 
and subscribed by the members of the assembly, con- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 249 

sisting of four cardinal legates, two other cardinals. 
twenty-five archbishops, one hundred and sixty-eight 
bishops, seven abbots, seven generals of orders and 
thirty-nine proxies of bishops, comprising in all two 
hundred and fifty- two. 

These decrees were confirmed January 10, 1564, by 
Pius IV., who had drawn up, based upon them in con- 
junction with the creeds previously in use, a profession 
of faith known under his name. " The doctrinal decrees 
of the council were received at once throughout the 
Western Church, a fact which it is necessary to note, as 
the question as to the reception of the decrees of doc- 
trine has sometimes been confounded with that regard- 
ing the decrees of reformation or discipline." As to 
the latter, delays and reservations took place. The first 
country to receive the decrees of the council as a whole, 
was the Republic of Venice. France accepted the - dis- 
ciplinary decrees only piecemeal and at intervals. 

The canons and decrees of the council of Trent were 
issued in Latin, and have been reprinted innumerable 
times. They have also been translated into almost 
every modern language. One of the supplementary 
works assigned to the Pope by the council at its break- 
ing up, was the completion of a catechism for the use of 
parish pr'ests and preachers. This work has not all 
the authority of the council, but it is of the vevy highest 
credit, and is extensively used, having, like the canons 
and decrees, been very generally translated. Another 
similar w rk was the publication of an authentic edition 
of the Vulgate version of the B'ble, as well as of the 
Breviary and Missal. All these have been accomplished 
at intervals ; and there is besides at Rome a permanent 
tribunal, a congregation of cardinals, styled wl Coiigrcga- 



2^0 HISTORY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

tio Interprcs Concilii Tridentini" to which belongs the 
duty of dealing with all questions which arise as to the 
meaning, the authority, or the effect of the canons and 
decrees of this celebrated council. (Chambers' Encyclo- 
pedia, vol. ix., p. 534.) 

It would occupy entirely too much space to give the 
dry and uninteresting details of this council. But we 
have given a faithful outline of its proceedings. Suffice 
to say that the Roman Catholic Church of the present 
day is but a counterpart, theologically and morally, of 
the council of Trent. During the various sittings of 
the sessions, such questions as these were discussed: the 
personal sin of Adam; original sin; the immaculate 
conception of the Virgin Mary; non-resident bishops; 
justification as opposed to Luther and other reformers; 
infant baptism ; the validity of baptism ; the conferring of 
grace by the sacraments; transubstantiation as opposed 
to consubstantiation ; extreme unction ; priestly vest- 
ments ; a visible priesthood; whether the cup should 
be given to the laity at the communion; pictures and 
images ; a general overhauling of the theology of Luther 
and Zwingle and Melancthon. 

The importance of the so called ecumenical councils 
has often been greatly over-estimated, not only by the 
Greeks and Roman Catholics, but also by many Protest- 
ants. John Jortin, D.D., an eminent preacher of the 
eighteenth century, and of the Church of England, tells 
us very forcibly that councils ' ' were a collection of 
men who were frail and fallible. Some of these councils 
were not assemblies of pious and learned divines, but 
cabals, the majority of which were quarrelsome, fanati- 
cal, domineering, dishonest prelates, who wanted to 
compel men to approve all their opinions, of which they 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 25 I 

themselves had no clear conceptions, and to anathema- 
tize and oppose those who would not implicitly 'submit 
to their determinations." (Works, vol. hi., charge 2.) 
The Romanists hold that the Pope alone can convene 
and conduct ecumenical councils, which are supposed, 
on their theory, to represent the universal Church under 
the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In matters of faith, 
councils profess to be guided by the Holy Scriptures 
and the traditions of the Church, while in lighter mat- 
ters human reason and expediency are consulted. In 
matters of faith, ecumenical councils are held to be infal- 
lible, and hence it is maintained that all such synods 
have agreed together; but in matters of discipline, etc., 
the authority of the latest council prevails The Roman 
claim is not sanctioned by history. The emperors called 
the first seven councils, and either presided over them 
in person or by commissioners; and the final ratification 
of the decisions was also left to the Emperor. But the 
Greek Church agrees with the Latin in ascribing abso- 
lute authority to the decisions of truly ecumenical coun- 
cils. Gregory of Nazianzus (who was president for a 
time of the second ecumenical council) speaks strongly 
of the evils to which such assemblies are liable. He 
says: i( I am inclined to avoid conventions of bishops ; I 
never knew one that did not come to a bad end, and create 
more disorders than it attempted to rectify." A remark- 
able view of the authority of councils was that of Nico- 
las of Clamengis, viz.; that they, in his opinion, could 
claim regard for their resolutions only if the members 
were really believers, and if they were more concerned 
for the salvation of souls than for secular interests. His 
views on general councils were fully set forth in a little 
work entitled : Disputatio de concilio generali, which con- 



252 HISTCKY OF CHURCH COUNCILS. 

sists of three letters, addressed in 141 5 or 1416, to a 
professor at the Paris University (printed apparently at 
Vienna in 1482). He not only places the authority of 
general councils over the authority of the popes, but the 
authority of the Bible over the authority of the councils. 
He doubts whether at all the former ecumenical coun- 
cils the Holy Spirit really presided, as the Holy Spirit 
would not assist men pursuing secular aims. He denies 
that a council composed of such men represents the 
Church, and asserts that God alone knows who are his 
people, and where the Holy Spirit dwells, and that there 
may be times when the Church can only be found in 
one single woman. After the lapse of over three hun- 
dred years, the Pope in 1867 signified his purpose to 
summon another ecumenical (or universal) council ; 
but of course none but Roman bishops attended it. 
(McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia, vol. ii., p. 539.) 



THE 



PRIMITIVE CHURCH 



AND 



INNOVATIONS. 



SECOND PART. 



Ti^e Primitive Churcf) and Innovations, 



HOLY WATER. 



So little is known by the general reader of the consti- 
tution and character of the primitive Church, as estab- 
lished by the apostles, and so ignorant are the common 
mass of mankind (of the Christian world) of the great 
apostasy which, in the first centuries of the Christian 
Era, overtook the apostolic Church, which finally cul- 
minated in the Papacy, that we have concluded to write 
a series of articles on a question so profoundly import- 
ant to the religious world, and on a subject so intensely 
interesting to every inquirer in pursuit of the truth. 
As the question is one of great length and latitude, and 
one which runs back through the Dark Ages, spanning 
time between the apostolic and the present age, it is our 
intention to trace out the origin of all human tradition, 
and of all ecclesiastical dogmas, and of pagan supersti- 
tion, such as the origin of the intercession of saints, the 
Papal primacy, transubstantiation, invocation of saints, 
the mass, indulgences, image worship, purgatory, pray- 
ing for the dead, auricular confession, extreme unction, 
holy water, celibacy, canonization of saints, baptism of 
bells, wax tapers, etc. In this enlightened and inquisi- 
tive age people wish to know the cause and the reason 
of things. But we are not writing for those who love 
darkness rather than light. 

(255) 



256 HOLY WATER. 

Jesus Christ is the foundation and the center of the 
Christian religion — of the remedial system of salvation. 
He is "the brightness of his Father's glory, and the 
express image of his person." He is our infallible Law- 
giver. He is invesled with all authority. There is no 
appeal from his word. We oniy know of him and of 
his precepts as we receive knowledge from the united 
and consistent testimonies of those who have recorded his 
acts and teachings, as eye and ear witnesses; or, as in 
the case of Luke, from the testimony of those who had 
the advantage of daily and personal intercourse with the 
Savior of men. Before the apostles passed away, after 
they had established the Church of Christ upon an 
impregnable basis, they, with other inspired historians, 
left us, in ivriting, an inspired book, or number of books, 
to infallibly guide us in the right way; the magna chatta 
of heaven, to tell us how to become the loyal subjects 
of Jesus Christ, and how to walk and live in the fear of 
God. These inspired writers of infallib'e truths acknowl- 
edged no object of adoration but the invisible and eter- 
nal God; they knew no intercessor but the "High 
Priest of our salvation " ; they knew of no expiatory 
sacrifice but the Lamb of God ; no other method of jus- 
tification was revealed to them save the grace of God 
which comes through the medium of faith. We read 
of no altar at the Lord's Supper, nor of image worship 
in consecrated temples, nor of a " Universal Bishop" in 
the Church of God ; nor hear of souls in purgatory, nor 
of a queen in heaven, nor of the stored-away merits of 
dead and living saints, nor of vain and pompous cere- 
monies. The greatest ornaments in the primitive con- 
gregations were simplicity of doctrine and purity of life. 

We stand immovably upon the ground that any 



REFORMATORY MOJ i 1ENTS. 257 

deviation from the written and inspired word of God 
must, by logical necessity, and in the very nature of 
things, be based on human invention and on the desire 
to glory in the things of men rather than in the things 
of God. What has been added to the word is "wood, 
hay and stubble." The introduction of Jewish and 
pagan rites and ceremonies by the early converts to 
Christianity, the glare and pomp of heathen practices, 
the dense ignorance of the people on the question of a 
divine revelation, and the connivance or craft of those 
who would be teachers in things divine, mixed with 
things secular, gradually obscured the word of God, 
under the guise of tradition. Innovations were intro- 
duced by slow degrees ; and, step by step, we see the 
"man of sin" developing, uir.il finally there looms up 
in the horizon that huge deformity called Popery. 

Justin Martyr (A. D. 130), in the following words, 
delineates the beautiful simplicity of the worship of the 
apostolic age : 

On the day that is called Sunday, there is an assembly in the same 
place, of those who dwell in towns or in the country ; and the histories 
of the apostles and the writings of tiie prophets are read, whilst the 
time permits; then the reading ceasing, the president verbally admon- 
ishes and exhorts the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise 
in common and offer prayers, bread and wine and water are offered, 
and the president offers prayers and thanksgivings, as far as it is in his 
power to do so, and the people joyfully cry out, saying, Amen. And 
the distribution and the communication is to each of those who have 
returned thanks, and it is sent by the deacons to those who are not 
present. And this food is called by us the eucharist. And in all that 
we offer we bless the Maker of all things by his Son Jesus Christ and 
by the Holy Spirit. Of those w r ho are rich and willing, each, accord- 
ing to his own pleasure, contributes; and what is thus collected is put 
away by the president, and he assists the orphans and widows, and 
those who, through sickness or any other cause, are destitute. (Second 
Apology for Christians, p. 97, Paris, 1015.) 
18 



258 HOLY WATER. 

Such was the simplicity of worship in those early 
days — the simplicity of worship which thousands are 
now longing for; but even here we trace an innovation, 
in the addition of water to the wine, a practice not 
known among apostolic institutions. It has been seen 
(about A. D. 1 10) that the celebration of the Lord's 
Supper formed an important part of the worship in the 
primitive Church. In that memorial institution Christ 
Jesus — the Savior of men — the only hope of the world 
— was the central figure of adoration, and the affections 
of the disciples centered in him. We read of no pastor 
or clergyman being present in that worship; we read of 
no organ, of no select choir, of no duets and quartettes, 
and of no gorgeous architecture and splendid drapery. 
The Jews, when they made their solemn appearances 
before God, took offerings with them", usually the pro- 
duce of the earth, in token of their grateful acknowledg- 
ment of daily mercies. The early Christians, the 
greater part of whom were of Jewish birth, retained this 
custom ; and, at the public assemblies, brought with 
them bread and wine, fruits, corn and grain. These, 
when consecrated by prayer, seem to have been used in 
part for the communion, and the rest distributed to the 
poor,* etc. 

The gifts thus brought retained the name of offerings, 
and from this simple beginning we can trace the corn- 
plicated superstitions of the Mass. From these offerings 
the "eucharist " (Lord's Supper) was called an oblation, 
afterward a sacrifice, gratulatory and not expiatory. It 
was the offering of the fruits of the earth, not of the 
body of Christ — though this furnished a pretense for 

*Plaff, Dissert, de Oblat., etc.; in his Stigmata Dissert. Theologia. 
Suit, 1720. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 259 

changing- the Supper into a sacrifice, by reason of the 
several attendant circumstances connected with the ser- 
vices, as hereafter to be stated, when we come to A. D. 

787. 

Platina, in his ''Lives of the Popes," attributes the 
introduction of the use of holy water to Alexander I.* 
(A. D. 108-117.) The authority for this statement is a 
decretal epistle of doubtful authenticity, to say the least 
of it (says Collette, the author of The Novelties of 
Romanism). But even if introduced, the practice was 
condemned by some of the subsequent Fathers as a 
pagan custom. The Emperor Julian, to spite the Chris- 
tians, ordered the provisions in the market to be sprink- 
led with holy water horn the heathen temples, on purpose, 
as Middleton observes, either to starve them, or force 
them to eat what they esteemed polluted. The use of 
holy water by the heathens at the entrance of their 
temples, to sprinkle themselves with, is admitted by 
Montfancon and the Jesuit, La Cerda — the latter, in his 
notes on a passage of Virgil where this practice is men- 
tioned, says: " Hence was derived the custom of Holy 
Church to provide purifying or holy water at the 
entrance of their churches " The modern priests use 
the same " aspergillium," or sprinkler, which was used 
by pagan priests for the same purpose, as seen on 
ancient bas-reliefs and coins. The Indians, the Brah- 
mins, et al , also use holy water in sprinkling their 
houses, etc , and believe that they can thereby wipe 
out their sins.f But the abuse of this custom did not 

*In the Clementine Constitutions the authorship of the Holy Water is 
attributed to St. Matthew. Lib. viii., chap, xxix., in Labb. Concil., 
torn i., col. 484. Lutet., Paris, 1671. 

fPicard's Ceremonies et Costumes Eeligieuse, vol. i., p. 18, note b. 
Amsterdam. 1723. 



26o HOLY WATER. 

take place until some centuries after — in the ninth cen- 
tury, as we shall eventually see. 

Whatever might have been the first intention of the 
originators of the custom (says Collette), it is very cer- 
tain that the present use is mingled with the grossest 
superstitions. Marsilius Columna, Archbishop of Sa- 
lerno, attributes to the use of holy water seven spiritual 
virtues: (i) to frighten away devils; (2) to remit venial 
sins ; (3) to cure distractions ; (4) to elevate the mind ; 
(5) to dispose it to devotion ; (6) to obtain grace ; (7) to 
prepare for the sacrament. As to corporal gifts : (a) 
to cure barrenness; (/;) to multiply goods; (Y) to procure 
health; (V) to purge the air from pestilential vapors. * 
There are other virtues attributed to holy water that are 
not fit to be spoken of to modest ears.f 

Even at this early period, various heresies existed in 
the Church, such as the Valentinian, the Gnostic and 
the Eucratite. These heretics declared against marriage 
and forbade eating flesh. The Montanists were likewise 
enemies to marriage, especially of the clergy. Almost 
all the present Papal heresies existed in some form or 
other during these early periods, either among the 
pagans or Jews, or one or other of the heretical sects. 
We shall see how and when they were successfully 
engrafted on the teaching of the apostles. Cardinal 
Baronias, in his Annals under the A. D. 740, says that 
"It is allowable for the Church to transfer to pious uses 
those ceremonies which the pagans employed impiously 
to superstitious worship, after they had been purified by 



*Marsilius Coiumna, Hydragialog, s. iii., c. ii., p. 281, etc. Rom., 
1686. 

tSee Doraenico Magri Notigia de Vocaboli Ecclesiastici in qua Bene- 
dicta ; p. 41. Rom., 1669. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 26l 

consecration ; for the devil is more mortified to see 
those things returned to the service of Jesus Christ, 
which were instituted for his own."* 



^Referring to pagan ceremonies, he says: " Consulto introductum 
videtur, ut quae erant Gentilatise superstitionis officia, eadem veri Dei 
cultui sanctificata in verse religionis cultum impenderentum." Baron : 
Annales, torn, ii., p. 384, col. i. Luc, 1738. 



FAST OF LENT. 



About A. D. 140, Telsephorus, bishop of Rome, 
instituted the fast of Lent upon a pretended tradition of 
the apostles. Fasts and festivals were instituted and 
practiced by both the Jews and pagans. Concerning 
the fast of Lent, more hereafter. 

The latter part of the second century was a period of 
violent persecutions and martyrdom. It was a custom 
of the Greeks to celebrate the memory of their heroes 
at their tombs, with a view of exciting the survivors to 
emulate their deeds of valor. Hence Christians, in 
order to encourage each other to suffer death for the 
name of Christ, thought they ought to imitate this 
Greek custom. They gathered such of the relics of the 
martyrs as could be saved, and gave them honorable 
burial, as they supposed. An annual commemoration, 
called the day of their nativity, or birthday to heaven, 
at their tombs or at their place of martyrdom, was then 
.celebrated on the days of their death.* At their 
assemblies, after prayer and exposition of the Scriptures, 
they rehearsed in order the names of the martyrs and 
their deeds. After which thanksgivings were then 
offered to God for having given victory. The proceed- 
ings terminated with the celebration of the " eucharist." 
Obviously the intention of these solemn meetings was 
to convey the idea that those who died in the hope of 
the gospel lived with the Lord, and in the memory of 

*Tertullian, De Cor. Militis, Edit. Roth., 1062, p. 289. 

(262) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 263 

the brotherhood, and to excite their surviving" friends to 
remain constant and faithful. Says Eusebius : "There 
[namely, where their bones were deposited], if it be 
p issible, meeting" together in joy and gladness, the 
Lord grant us to celebrate the birthday of this martyr- 
dom, both in memory of those who have wrestled before 
us, and for the exercise and preparation of those that 
come after."* No religious worship was rendered to 
the martyrs themselves at the first; for Eusebius, in the 
treatise last referred to, thus expresses himself, touching 
these ceremonies: "We are taught to worship God 
only, and to honor those blessed powers that are about 
him with such honor as is fit and agreeable to their 
estate and condition." And again : "To God only will 
we give the worship due unto his name, and him only 
do we religiously worship and adore, "f Following this 
apparently harmless practice, prayers for the dead were 
instituted; next came intercession for the departed; and, 
in the course of time, there came the s xcrifice of the mass, 
as now practiced by the Roman hierarchy. 

About the year A. D. 200, offerings began to be 
presented at the celebrations in memory of m irtyrs; the 
action, however, still being one of commemoration 
only. Hence arose the custom of offerings for the dead. 
These offerings were generally made by the parents of 
the deceased. J The gifts were distributed to the poor. 
From this arose saints' days. The transition to prayers 
for the dead was made easy; and this was the first great 
innovation which invaded the sanctity of the apostolic 



*Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., lib. v., c. ix.; and lib. iv., c. xv. Paris, 1659. 
tEuseb., De Praep. Evang., lib. iv., c. x., p. SS. Edit. Stephani, 
Paris, 1544. 

JNeander's Church Hist., vol. iii., pp. 4G9, 470. London, 1851. 



264 FAST OF LENT. 

Church. It is important to observe that it is honestly 
admitted by Tertuilian, a celebrated writer of this age, 
that this practice was founded on custom, and not on 
the Scriptures,* and was, therefore, called a tradition. 
It is to be noted that, though some Christians did now 
begin to pray for the dead, it was not that they should 
be freed from the pains of purgatory. It was a common 
belief that departed souls did not enjoy the beatific 
vision until the day of resurrection and the last judg- 
ment; but there is no trace of a belief at this period 
that they were in a place of torment f They prayed 
for the consumnat'on of their glory, and that they them- 
selves might join the departed in the resurrection of the 
just — a custom having no sanction in Scripture, but still 
differing widely from the modern practice and intention 
of praying for the dead. 

The next step in advance (A. D. 240) was a mistaken 
zeal of martyrs and others in the prospect of death. 
They began to make mutual agreements that he who 
should first depart should remember the survivor, and 
implore God in his behalf when lie found himself in the 
next world. | Here we have the beginning of interces- 
sion of saints, but it was the departed for the living. 



-Tertuilian, De Cor. Militis, cap. iii., p. 121 D. Paris, 1634. 
f Jeremiah Taylor's Works, " Dissuasion from Popery," c. i., sec. 
iv. Edit, by Heber, vol. x , p. 149. London, 1839. 

J Cyprian, En. ad Cornel. Ep. 57, p. 96. Edit. Paris, 1726. 



ORIGIN OF MONASTIC VOWS, PRIESTLY 

VESTMENTS AND THE SIGN OF 

THE CROSS. 



About the year 250, and for some time thereafter, the 
bishop of Rome took upon himself to interfere in 
matters which had been adjudged or determined by 
the bishop of Africa. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, 
opposed this newly-assumed power, and denied the 
right of the bishop of Rome to intermeddle with the 
decisions of other bishops in their own sees. He wrote 
to the bishop of Rome and told him that "it was 
decreed by the African bishops that every case was to 
be heard where the crime was committed."* These 
interferences continued for some time, and were always 
resisted, until the Council of Melevi, in Numidia (A.D. 
415), passed a decree, signed by sixty bishops, among 
whom was St. Augustine, prohibiting all appeals to any 
other tribunal than the primate of the province where 
the subject matter arose, f Of the primacy, more here- 
after. 

In the year 257 "the hallowing of priests' vestures 
and altar clothes, with other ornaments of churches, 
was taken out of the Hebrew priesthood and used in 
our Church first by Stephen, the first bishop of Rome 
of that name. For, at the beginning, priests, in their 
massing, used rather inward virtues of soul than outward 



* Ep. ad Cornel, p. 136, Oxon, 1682; Paris Edit., 1836, p. 73. 
j Manse's Councils, torn, iv., p. 507, Venetiis, 1785. 

(265) 



266 ORIGIN OF MONASTIC VOWS, ETC. 

apparel of the body, which is rather a glorious gaze 
than any godly edifying."* 

In consequence of the persecutions of this age (A.D. 
260), some began to seek the deserts, and a monastic 
life ensued. Paul was the first hermit who fled from 
Alexandria into the desert, on account of the persecu- 
tions in the time of the Emperor Valerian. Fleury, 
the noted Roman Catholic Church historian, canonist 
and confessor of Louis XV., A. D. 1716, from whose 
ecclesiastical history we shall have frequent occasion to 
quote, says: w ' Monasticism was introduced into favor 
mainly by the influence of Athanasius [A. D. 370] ; but 
in the year 341, the profession of a monk was despised 
at Rome as a novelty."! And Polydore Vergil says: 
k ' The institution of this state of things came, I grant, 
of a good zeal to godliness, but the evil perverter of ail 
good things did so empoison the hearts of them that 
followed, that they had more trust in their monks than 
faith in Christ's blood ; and then every man began new 
rules of monks to be their own saviors, and went so 
superstitiously to work that it was out of rule and 
abominable in the sight of God." + 

At this period, Christians being much mixed with 
pagans, and suffering from their taunts and persecutions, 
made themselves known to each other by the sign of 
the cross on the forehead, in token that they were not 
ashamed of the cross of Christ. It was a sort of badge 
of their profession, and a silent calling on the name of 
Christ. There was no virtue attributed to the action, 
but simply a profession of Christ made, whose name 



* Polydore Vergil, b. vi., c. viii., p. 136. London, 1551. 

f Fleury, Histoire EccL, Paris, 1722-1784, t im. iii., pp. 340, 341. 

X Polydore Vergil, b. viii., c. i., p. 131, London, 1551, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 26j 

was tacitly invoked. In modern times the original cus- 
tom has been superstitiously and mischievously per- 
verted. It is now supposed that the signing of the 
cross drives away evil spirits. What was at first sup- 
posed to be harmless, has degenerated into a gross 
superstition, as do all "harmless innovations," such as 
we are now daily encountering in the very current of 
the grand reformation of the nineteenth century. 

It was about this time (the latter part of the third 
century) that a custom became prevalent from which 
the modern theory of indulgence has been derived. 
Christians who had been convicted of crimes were 
required to make confession of them publicly before the 
entire congregation, to implore pardon, and to undergo 
whatever punishment the church thought best to impose 
on them. This was done as well for example as to pre- 
vent reproach to the Christian religion among infidels. 
These punishments were not supposed tc be satisfactory 
to God. Such an idea can not be traced in any of the 
writers of the age who mention the practice. At the 
latter end of the third century, when many had lapsed, 
through fear of persecution, the punishment and period 
of probation became more severe and lengthened before 
they were readmitted. Sometimes the period was pro- 
tracted for a series of years. Hence, arose the custom 
of prescribing times or periods — five, ten or more years 
— of penance; but, lest the penitent should lose heart, 
or be driven to despair, the bishops took upon them- 
selves, under certain circumstances, to mitigate the 
period of punishment. This act was termed a relaxa- 
tion or remission. It was not till long after this that 
the term indulgence was substituted, and when intro- 
duced it was in a far different sense to its modern use. 



268 ORIGIN OF MONASTIC VOWS, ETC. 

It signified only a discharge, or a mitigation, of ecclesi- 
astical censures and penalties inflicted by the Church, 
and not a remission of the penalty due to God's justice 
for the sin of the penitent which had been forgiven, 
which is the modern Romish idea. But the transition 
from one to the other can well be comprehended when 
we find craft and avarice on the one side, and supersti- 
tion and ignorance on the other. * 

As to the various orders of the priesthood, Polydore 
Vergil (A. D. 290) says: 

The bishops of Rome, following the shadows of the old abrogated 
law of the Hebrews, have ordained a swarm of divers other orders, as 
porters or sextons, readers, exorcists, acolytes, sub-deacons, deacons, 
priests, bishops, archbishops, as a certain degree, one above another. 
Caius [A. D. 290], bishop of Rome, did begin the orders first ; yet 
some say Hygenius [A. D. 140] ordained those decrees long before 
Caius' time. Hygenius might be the first deviser of them, and after- 
ward Caius acccomplished the work and brought it to a final consum- 
mation.! 

Now see the parallel between that time and this. As 
men and churches depart from the- simplicity of the 
gospel, there comes a corresponding demand for offices. 
Many persons can be induced to remain in the Church, 
provided you give them honor and distinction, with 
salaries to support them in their places of honor. 
Among ourselves the demand for honor and distinction 
is greater than the supply, although we have the Gen- 
eral Missionary Convention, with its officers ; the State 
societies, with their officers ; the district societies, with 
their officers ; the Foreign Board, with its officers ; the 
Woman's Board, with its officers; auxiliary societies, 



* '• The Novelties of Romanism," the Religious Tract Society, Lou- 
don, Collette, p. 166. 

f B. iv., c. iv., p. 83, London, 1551, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 269 

with their officers ; "officiary boards " for the churches, 
and presided over by self-styled bishops. "Also of 
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse 
things, to draw disciples after them. ,, 



ORIGIN OF THE MASS AND CELIBACY. 



We now come into the fourth century. In A. D. 
300, the Emperor Cons antine having become a Chris- 
tian, nominally at least, the Church, as a whole, being 
released temporarily from terrible persecutions, began to 
assume a pageantry and splendor out of all harmony 
with the simplicity of the persons who founded the 
Church We trace now more frequently the terms "sac- 
rifice" and "altar," though still used in a different sense 
from their modern application. We pause here to quote 
from the Novelties of Romanism, p. 167, as relating to 
the matter under consideration : 

When the word "sacrifice " was used by the Fathers, it was not in 
the sense in which it is now used ; and this is evident from the fact 
that they used the same term as applied to " baptism," as admitted by 
Melchior Canus. He said: "But you demand what cause had many 
of the ancient Fathers that they called baptism a sacrifice, and therefore 
said there remained no more sacrifice for sin, because baptism can not 
be repeated. Truly, because in baptism we die together with Christ, 
and by this sacrament the sacrifice of the cross is applied unto us to 
the full remission of sin, hence they call baptism metaphorically a 
sacrifice (Canus' Loc. Theol., lib. xii., fol. 424-426; Louvan, 1569). 
And for the same purpose did they call the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper a sacrifice, metaphorically being a memorial of the sacrifice on 
the cross. 

We are told upon the pages of history that at the 
beginning of the fourth century freedom from perse- 
cution gave opportunities for collecting the relics of 
martyrs. These were now reinterred under the commun- 
ion-table. This custom was of decidedly pagan origin. 

(270) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 27 1 

A similar custom among- the Athenians is related by 
Plutarch in his life of Theseus ; and as they did of old 
with their pagan heroes, so the modern Romanists 
deposit relics of the so called saints, supplemented with 
processions and sacrifices. The building of church 
chapels led to superstitious consecrations, and other 
senseless ceremonies, which, no doubt, according to 
modern parlance, were the product of "sanctified com- 
mon sense." Eusebius informs us that "this Emperor 
[Constantine], to make the Christian religion more 
plausible to the Gentiles, adopted the exterior ornaments 
which they used in their religion." The consecration 
of churches (temples), accompanied by superstitious 
rites, is unquestionably of pagan origin ; the vestal vir- 
gins sprinkled the ground with lustral water; and now 
lustral water is sprinkled upon helpless, unreasoning 
babes in Protestant churches, in the name of Jesus 
Christ ! 

In 325 the famous Council of Nice met with the 
express purpose of settling certain points of discipline. 
It was determined that the bishop of each metropolitan 
church should rule the district attached to that church, 
and be independent, in his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, of 
of any other bishop.* Rome, however, by virtue of 
being the acknowledged seat of empire, enjoyed a pre- 
cedence of honor, but not of ecclesiastical rank. The 
bishop of Constantinople, by conciliar decree, enjoyed 
the same primacy and ecclesiastical prerogatives with the 
bishop of Rome f This decree is important, for not 
only did it declare the rights of the See of Constanti 
nople, but it expressly points out the nature of the pre- 

*Labb. et Coss., torn, ii., col. 32. Paris, 1671. 

f Council Chal., can. 28 ; ibid., torn, iv., col. 769. Paris. 1671. 



272 ORIGIN OF THE MASS AND CELIBACY. 

cedency enjoyed by Rome — a precedency arising from 
ti'ie fact of Rome having been the seat of empire. This 
precedency was now shared by Constantinople for the 
same reason. It is unnecessary to reproduce here the 
twenty eighth canon of the Council of Nice, which con- 
tains the decree alluded to. 

It was at this council that the question of the celibacy 
of the clergy was seriously mooted. Marriage was then 
allowed to all, though it had been previously the subject 
of discussion. The Council of Elvira, in Spain, A. D. 
305, was the first to announce the law that the clergy of 
the first three grades should abstain from all marriage 
intercourse, or be deposed (Neander's Church History, 
vol. ri., p. 208. London, 1 85 1). The other orders were 
left to the free choice of each individual. By the Coun- 
cil of Neo-Cacsarea (A. D. 314), presbyters were not 
allowed to marry; and it enjoined the degradation of 
priests who married after ordination.'" Ecclesiastics, on 
taking their charge, stated whether they would refrain 
from marrying or not ; if they answered that they would 
refrain, they were not allowed to marry ; otherwise, 
they were allowed. The question first arose in conse- 
quence of the fearful persecutions of the times, and also 
in consequence of the extreme poverty of the congrega- 
tions. At the Council of Nice, however, it was dis- 
cussed whether celibacy should be made compulsory. 
Bishop Paphnutias protested against a law being passed 
on the subject, on the ground that such an unnatural 
prohibition would produce great immorality, and was 
contrary to the Holy Scriptures. \ The custom was not 
universally received, but here is where the hideous 



•Labb. et Coss. Council, torn, i., col. 1479. Paris, 1671. 
fSozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. i., cap. xxiii., p. 41. Cantab, 1720. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2/3 

dogma first began to develop Even so late as A. D. 
692, at the Sixth General Council, it was decreed by 
the thirteenth canon that they should be deposed who 
should presume to deprive deacons and priests, after the 
receiving of orders, of the company of their lawful 
wives, and that they who, after the taking of orders, 
under the pretense of greater holiness, should put away 
their wives, should be deposed and properly excommu- 
nicated.'-' In fact, the Roman canon law did admit that 
the marriage of the clergy is not prohibited by the law, 
the gospel, or the apostles, but that it is strictly prohib- 
ited by "the Church. *'f 

Celibacy was most esteemed among the heathen phi- 
losophers. Jerome, in his second book against Jovinian, 
relates some curious customs practiced by the Athenian 
and Egyptian priests. Josephus and Pliny also inform 
us of the customs of the Jewish Church with regard to 
this subject. Constantine, in the commemoration of 
the Passion, first ordered Friday to be held as a solemn 
feast. The feast days Good Friday and Enster (Oester, 
the name of a German god) are both of pagan origin ; 
and yet Christians, in the latter part of the nineteenth 
century, perpetuate these pagan festivals ! 

About A. D. 350 there were three classes of persons 
who were not permitted to partake of the "eucharist," 
or Lord's Supper, viz : the CatJiecumcns, or those under 
instruction ; the Penitents, not as yet received into 
church communion; and Demoniacs, or those supposed 
to be possessed with wicked spirits. The sermon being 
ended, the deacon intimated to these that they should 



*Can. xiii., Concl. in Trulla, A. D. 692, col. 9-17, E., torn. xi. 
Mansi, Florentise, 1765. 
fDecreti Secunda Pars., Cause xxvi., q. ii., c. i. ? foh 884. 
19 



274 ORIGIN OF THE MASS AND CELIBACY. 

withdraw, dismissing them with these words, "Itemissa 
est" — a valedictory expression, or solemn leave-taking 
of them, which did not apply to the ceremony which 
followed. In succeeding ages those words began to be 
contracted into mass, and the eucharist, which followed, 
was called from thence the mass* Even this is of pagan 
origin. In the work by which Apuleias, a Platonic 
philosopher of the second century, made himself best 
known, entitled li De Asino Aureo" — The Golden Ass, 
we read that, in imitation of an old ceremony among the 
Greeks, when the worship of Isis was concluded, the 
people were dismissed by two Greek words signifying 
their discharge. The pagan Romans, when their devo- 
tions were concluded, discharged the throng with the 
words, il lte missio est" This, by gradual corruption, 
passed into massa. Polydore Virgil says: 

When the mass is ended, the deacon, turning to the people, sayeth, 
"Ite ra/.ssa est," which words are borrowed from the rite of the pagans, 
and signifieth that then the company may be dismissed. It was U3cd 
in the sacrifices of Jsis, that when the observances were duly and fully 
performed and accomplished, then the minister of religion should give 
warning or a watchword what time they should lawfully depart. And 
of this springs our custom of singing Ite missa est for a certain significa- 
tion that the full service was finished. f 

Fleury, the French historian, fixes 366 as the date of 
the actual beginning of the so-called appellate authority 
or jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome. He says that 
the Emperor Valentinian ordered that the bishop of 
Rome, with his colleagues, should examine the causes 
of other bishops. J The decree empowered (in matters 



*Ncander, in his Church History, gives this as the origin of the 
term. See vol. iii., p. 461, note. London, 1851. 
fBook v., c. ix., p. 110. Edit. London, 1551. 
JFleury, Eccles. Hist., torn, iv., p. 146. Paris, 1724. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 275 

not canonical) the metropolitan bishops to judge the 
inferior clergy, and the bishop of Rome to judge the 
metropolitan bishops, or the di cesail bishops who occu- 
pied cities inferior to Rome; but this only extended the 
jurisdiction of Rome westward. This privilege, says 
Fleury, was conceded to Damasus, whose election was 
by no means canonical. At a council subsequently held 
at Rome (378), Damasus addressed a memorial to the 
Emperor Grauan, to confirm the above decree, the 
object of which was to shift the clergy from civil to 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or to the Emperor himself; 
but it is important to note that they accepted the boon 
as an indulgence, or concession from the Emperor. 
The notion of "divine right," now so confidently and 
arrogantly appealed to, was not then introduced. The 
" exemption " did not extend to criminal cases. It was 
from these small beo-innings, concessions made bv tern- 
poral princes to ecclesiastics, that the huge ecclesiastical 
fabric and monstrous Papal hierarchy was ultimately 
constructed. 

The preference given to the See of Rome arose from 
the splendor and importance of the city, and the magnif- 
icence and luxury, even at this early age, of the lordly 
bishop of that See. Fleury gives the words of a pagan 
historian of the period, who said that he was not at all 
surprised to see the strifes to attain to the Papal See, 
when he considered the splendor of Rome, where the 
chief bishop is enriched by offerings from ladies, and 
that they drove in chariots, clothed splendidly, lived 
well, their tables surpassing even those of kings. This 
author jokingly said to Damasus : " Make me bishop of 
Rome and I will become a Christian."* 



*Fleury, Eccles. Hist., vol. iv., p. 146. Paris, 1724. 



2?6 ORIGIN OF THE MASS AND CELIBACY. 

The love of position, the love of power, and the love 
of money in the Church, has been the bane of the 
Church in all ages. This we shall see more fully further 
on, as the great apostasy continues to develop. Convo- 
cations, conventions, councils, synods and conferences, 
constituted of clergymen, and undertaking to legislate 
for Jesus Christ, while placing the masses in the condi- 
tion of passive servitude, have not only made a grand 
failure as elevating institutions, but they have oppressed 
and weakened the Church in all ages, while at the same 
time they have elevated, honored and enriched the self- 
ish and ambitious few. 



PRAYING FOR THE DEAD. 



The latter part of the fourth century (A. D. 370) was 
famous on account of its orators They displayed their 
talents on the occasions of celebrating the memorials of 
saints, and in funeral orations, by reciting their peculiar 
virtues. To give effect to their eloquence, they began 
to apostrophize the departed. Gregory Nazianzen, in 
the first oration, exclaimed, "Hear, likewise, thou soul 
of great Constantine, if thou hast any understanding in 
these things."* The same orator, in the second oration, 
and in a similar manner, addressed his speech to the 
soul of the apostate Julian, which he believed to be in 
hell. These apostrophes were figures of rhetoric: the 
sentiments offered were no. enunciation of doctrine, and 
as yet were different in character and purpose from the 
modern custom of invocation of saints. There is no 
doubt that a way was thereby opened for the introduc- 
tion of the more modern heresy; for thenceforward, by 
imperceptible advances, the mystified people began to 
address their requests to saints departed ; but it Was not 
until long after this that invocation of saints was intro- 
duced into the church service as a legitimatized practice. 

Invocating angels became common in the province of 
Phrygia. Oratories of St. Michael were erected. This 
heresy was at once condemned by the Council of 
Laodicea, held about this time (A. D. 368). The thirty- 
fifth canon is as follows: "It does not behoove Chris- 



Vol. i., p. 78. Paris, 1778, Benedictine Edition. 

(277) 



278 PRAYING FOR THE DEAD. 

tians to leave the Church of God and go and invoke 
angels, and make assemblies, which things are forbidden. 
If, therefore, any one be detected idling in their secret 
idolatry, let him be accursed, because he has forsaken 
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and gone to 
idolatry." It may he urged by the advocates of saint 
worship, that "idolatry" alone is condemned; but in 
passing such a decree the Council would have made 
some reservation for a legitimate innovation, had such 
been the practice of the Church in those days.* 

''Praying for the dead" came into a more general 
practice about A. D. 380, as appears from the records. 
Eusebius tells us that at the death of Constantine they 
prayed in behalf of his soul; "but it must be noted," 
says Collette, "that the intent of these prayers was 
very different from the modern custom ; for the writers 
of this age testify that, in the same prayers were 
included those whom the modern Church of Rome 
would exclude, namely, those supposed to be in hell ; 
as also those who, it is now supposed, do not require 
such prayers, but, on the contrary, are prayed to, 
namely, patriarchs, prophets, evangelists, apostles, 
martyrs and the Virgin Mary, "f Here we find the 
foundation on which the modern Papal practice is based, 
which, however, is inseparable from the doctrine of 
purgatory, not tnen developed. 

From a passage in Epiphanias,J we must presume 



* Labb et Coss., Council Lajd., c. 35, torn, i., col. 1503. Paris, J671. 

fThe references are numerous. Ses Cyril's Catech. xxiii.. Mys. tag. 
v., n- ix., p. 328. Paris, 1720. Chrysost. Horn, xxix., in Acts ix. 
Liturg. Oper., torn, xii., p. 1011. Paris, 1838. And admitted by Dr. 
Wiseman in his Moorefield Lectures, lect. xi., p. 66, note. London, 
1851. 

JEpiph. -Epist. ad Johan. Ilieros. Hieron., torn, i., p. 251. Colon, 
1682. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 279 

that, at this time, some desired to introduce paintings 
in churches, for he records the fact that, on finding in a 
certain village in Palestine a painted cloth representing 
Christ, he cut it down. The authenticity of this epistle 
has been questioned by Bellarmine, but it has been 
vindicated by the learned critic, Rivet, in his Grit. 
Sacer., edit. 1682. 

It is alleged that Siricius, bishop of Rome (386), was 
the first, by decree, who undertook to prohibit the 
clergy within his jurisdiction from entering the marriage 
relation. The previous Council of Ancyra (A. D 314) 
did not prohibit the marriage of the clergy; but the 
tenth canon expressly allowed those persons who, at 
the time of being made deacons, declared their intention 
to marry, to d) so, and to remain in the priesthood; 
but those who did not declare their purpose, but 
were ordained, professing that they would live a single 
life, were to be deposed if they married afterward.* 
Socrates, the ecclesiastical histori.in of the fifth century, 
designated this as a "new law."f Rather he should 
have said that it was a revival of an old pagan custom. 
It is a well-known fact that the ancient Egyptian priests 
were prohibited from marrying. It was a Manichean 
heresy .% It was not until A. D. 950 that the decree 
was observed in every church: for throughout the prov- 
inces of Europe many of the priesthood were married. 
Athanasius (A. D. 340), writing to Bishop Dracontius, 
told him "that in his days many monks were parents 
of children, and bishops were likewise fathers. "| Gra 

*Labb. et Coss. Concl. Gen. Concl. Ancyra, can. x., torn, i., col. 
1456. Paris, 1671. 

f Socrates' ITist. Ec, lib. i., c. ii., Bib. Max. Patr., torn. vii. 
|See Aug. Kp. 74, p. 848, torn. ii. Paris, 1079. 
||Athanas. ad Dracontium., p. 739, torn. i. Heidel., 1001. 



280 PRAYING FOR THE DEAD. 

tian does not hesitate to testify that many bishops of 
Rome were the sons of priests. He names Popes 
Damasus, Hosius, Boniface. Agapetus, Theodorus, 
Silverius, Felix, Gelasius, as all being Popes and sons 
of priests, some even of bishops; and he adds, "There 
were many others also to be found who were begotten 
of priests and governed in the Apostolic See.'** Roman 
bishops, descended from ecclesiastical parents, were 
married during their clerkships: as were Boniface L, 
Felix III., Gelasius I., etc. Even so late as A. D. 
1068 we find that at a council held in Barcelona, by the 
Legate Cardinal Hugo, it was unanimously agreed that 
the clergy should not be married, "as had hitherto been 
permitted, "f The decree was authoritatively enforced 
in 1074, under Hildebrand, and renewed by the twenty- 
first canon of the first Laterari Council, A. D. 11 23; I 
and also by the sixth and seventh canons of the second 
Lateran Council (A.D. 1 1 39). The latter canon forbade 
anyone to hear mass celebrated by a married priest. || 
which canon, by the way, is in direct contradiction to 
the fourth canon of the Council of Gangra (A. D. 325, 
or, as some say, 380). 

There were many unscriptural and superstitious cus- 
toms practiced, in the times of which we write, under 
the pretended authority of tradition ; and so great was 
the corruption of the age, even at this < arly period of 
the Church, that Cyprian exclaimed that '■ the Church 
of God and spouse of Christ was fallen into this bad 
state, that, to celebrate the heavenly mysteries, light 



*Grat. Par. L, Dist. 56, c. iii., p. 291, torn. i. Lug., 1671. 
fSee Landon's Manual of Councils, p. 56. London, 1846. 
JLabb. et Coss. Concl., torn, x., col. 899. Paris. 1671. 
jlbid., col. 10 03. 



REFORMATORY -MOVEMENTS. 28 1 

borrowed discipline even from darkness itself, and 
Christians do the very same things that antichrists 
do."* And, in the succeeding century, Augustine 
complained that such was the accumulation of ceremo- 
nial observances, that the condition of the Jews under 
the servile yoke of the law was more supportable than 
that of Christians under the gospel, f 

About A.D. 390, a remarkable occurrence took place, 
as recorded by the historians Socrates and Sozomen,; 
with reference to private confession. In the primitive 
Church Christians made public confession of sins before 
the assembled congregation. This was the injunction 
of the apostles, " Confess your faults one to another."' 
During the awful persecutions which followed the 
apostolic age, many Christians denied the faith and 
abandoned the Church. The penitent was, after a 
public confession and performance of penance, read- 
mitted into the communion of the Church. About the 
year 250, during and after the Decian persecution, the 
number of "penitents'' returning to the faith was so 
great that the bishops could not attend to them all, and 
the public confession was as notorious as it was scandal- 
ous. Accordingly a new officer was created as "peni- 
tentiary presbyter," to whom all who desired to be 
admitted to public penance for private sins, should first 
confess their sins, and afterward, if not too scandalous 
for public ears, confess them in the hearing of all. This 
was also necessary, as some public confessions entailed 
other and painful inconveniences. 

This was the first institution of the "penitentiary 

■Cyprian, Epist. Pomp., Ep. Ixxiv., 224. Leipsic edit., 1838. 

t Aug. Epist. ad Jannar, 55, sec. 35, vol. iii., p. 142. Paris, 1700. 

^Socrates, lib. v., c. xix. Soz., i. 7, c. 16. 



282 PRAYING FOR THE DEAD. 

priest." In this year (A. D. 390) the office was sup- 
pressed, and with it private confession abolished This 
occurred at Constantinople by order of Nectarius, 
bishop of that city, and the example was followed all 
over the East. The circumstance came about by rea- 
son of a scandalous occurrence, which happened to a 
lady of distinction after confession, the crime having 
been committed in the church itself. The misbehavior 
of one priest was visited on all the priesthood, which 
incident set the whole city in. an uproar; and, to 
appease the tumult, Nectarius not only deprived the 
offending deacon of his office, but also removed the 
"penitentiary," and with it all private confessions; and 
the more effectually to prevent for the future the scan- 
dal, inseparable, as it appears, from the system, he 
abolished that office, and, to use the words of Nectarius 
above referred to, "Leaving any man free to partake 
of the holy mysteries according to the direction of his 
own conscience," thus abolishing the custom of private, 
or, as it is now called, auricular confession. This, at 
that remote time, was regarded as a human expedient, 
and the confession and penance enjoined were left 
optional with the people, on the ground, we presume, 
of the "silence of the Scriptures," as some apologists 
now boldly assert. But notice, out of that shadow of 
apostasy there has come forth the real dogma itself, 
which consists in the fact that private confession to a 
priest is now made compulsory on every member of the 
Romish Church. The Council of Carthage, held under 
bishop Aurelius in the year 397, by the twenty-ninth 
canon ordered that mass should be said in the time of 
fasting. * 

*Labb. et Coss. Concl., Carth., can. xxix., torn, ii., col. 1,165. 
Paris, 1671. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 283 

Apostasy is hardly perceptible at first, but it gathers 
momentum as it proceeds, and descends with increased 
rapidity until the final crash comes. Once float away 
from the fixed standard of New Testament teaching, 
and there is no telling where you will tie up, or how far 
out you will float without pilot or compass. Facihs est 
descensus, etc. Either absolute anarchy or absolute 
spiritual despotism is not far off, when men begin to 
talk disrespectfully of the "silence of the Scriptures, "' 
and when they begin to manufacture "sanctified com- 
mon sense' out of that which is neither written nor 
authorized. Spiritual despotism may be an escape from 
anarchy — from latitudinarianism, or from rationalism. 
Where there is so much talk on matters of "human 
expediency," and a strong inclination to take advantage 
of the "silence of the Scriptures," those in the per- 
formance are verging close to rationalism. 



PURGATORY AND PASCHAL CANDLES. 



Between A. D. 230 and A. D. 400, curious and 
various and many were the speculations broached in 
regard to the state of the dead or the condition of souls 
in hades or in the world of spirits. Origen (230), a 
man of great learning, but, withal, a visionary mystic, 
seems to have been the first to pave the way for the 
evolution of purgatory. He was of the opinion that the 
faithful, as well as the unrighteous, would pass through 
a fire which was to consume the world on the last day, 
after the resurrection, when all, even the devil himself, 
would eventually be saved. This speculation, however, 
was condemned by a general council of the Church.* 
This theory of Origen, the Greek scholar, was but the 
prelude of many other speculations in regard to the 
existence of purgatory. About this time, Augustine, 
bishop of Hippo, in Africa, though he condemned Ori- 
gen's theory, evolved from the realms of mysticism one 
of his own speculations. Some such thing as a purga- 
torial fire, he said, might be probable,! but he did not 
treat it as a matter of accepted faith and doctrine. 
These mystical speculations, evolved from dreamy 
Egypt, and revolved through several successive centuries, 
finally brought to maturity the modern Romish doctrine 



*By the General Council held at Constantinople, A. D. 553. See 
Bals. apud Belveridge. Synod, torn, i., p. 150. Oxon, 1672. Augustine, 
lib. de H seres, c. xliii. , torn, viii., p. 10. Benedictine edition, Paris, 
1685. 

tAugustine, Euch. de Fide. Spe. et Caritate, torn* iv., p. 222. Paris, 
1685. (284) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 28$ 

of purgatory, and also the handsome hell of the Univer- 
salists. 

It was at the Council of Toledo (A. D. 400) that the 
bishop of Rome was, for the first time, spoken of simply 
by the title of "Pope."* But, as we shall see further 
down the ages, it was not until A D. 1073 that the title 
was assumed exclusively by the bishop of Rome. 

About A. D. 417 the custom of hallowing paschal 
candles on Easter eve was commanded by Zosimus, and 
ordered to be observed in every church, f The word 
"Easter" is only found once in the Bible — in Acts xii. 
4 — and there it should be translated Passover, to har- 
monize with the Greek term pascha. Easter is a word 
of Saxon origin, and imports a goddess of the Saxons, 
or, rather, of th : East, Estira, in honor of whom sacri- 
fices being annually offered about the Passover time of 
the year (spring), the name became attached by associa- 
tion of ideas to the Christian festival of the resurrection, 
which happened at the time of the Passover ; hence we 
say Easier Day, Easter Sunday, but very improperly ; as 
we by no means refer the festival then kept to the god- 
dess of the ancient Saxons. So the present German 
word for Easter, Ostem, is referred to the same goddess 
Estera or Ostera (Calmet, s. v.). 

In A. D. 419, when Boniface found himself seated on 
the Papal throne, he affected to be shocked at the scan- 
dals witnessed at the elections of bishops of Rome. In 
order to prevent cabals and intrigues on similar occa- 
sions, to the scandal of the Christian religion, from 
which he himself had not been free, he petitioned the 
Emperor Honorius to pass a law with a view of restrain- 

*"See Landon's Manual of Councils, p. 578. London, 1846. 
fPolydore Vergil, b. vi., c. v., p. 120. London, 1551. 



286 PURGATORY AND PASCHAL CANDLES. 

ing the ambition and intrigues of aspirants to the Papacy. 
Accordingly Honorius made a decree to the effect that, 
when two rival candidates were chosen, neither was to 
hold the dignity, but the people and clergy were to pro- 
ceed to a new election.* This is the first instance in 
history, says Bower, in his "History of the Popes," of 
princes intermeddling in the election of the bishop of 
Rome, a necessity imposed on the Roman Church on 
account of the many disorders of which the clergy and 
people were guilty in those elections. The emperors 
reserved a right of confirmation, which they exercised 
for many years thereafter. A notable example is the 
case of Gregory I., who, when elected, Wrote to the 
Emperor entreating him not to confirm his appointment. 

In the year 431, the first law was passed granting 
asylum in churches to fugitives, f or places for harboring 
and protecting transgressors of the law, as well as for 
the persecuted innocent people of God. 

Mr. Elliott, in his Horce Apocalypticce,% assigns this as 
the date when the bishop of Rome distinctly assumed 
the "keys" as a symbol of ecclesiastical power. The 
use of the keys as symbolical of the Papal power, is, like 
many similar practices, curiously connected with pagan 
mythology. The key was a symbol of two well-known 
pagan divinities of Rome. Janus bore a key, || as did 
also Cybele. It was only in the second century before 
the Christian Era that the worship of Cybele, under that 
name, was introduced into Rome ; but the same goddess, 



*See F. Page's Crit. Hist., in Annal. Baroni. ad arm, 419. 
fCod. Tbeodosius, lib. ix., tit. 45, 1, 4, vol. iii. Lips. 1736. Nean- 
der's Church Hist., vol. iii., p. 206. London, 1851. 
JVol. iii., p. 139. London, 1851. 
||«ee Ovid's "Fasti," vol. iii., 1, 101, p. 346, opera. Leyden, 1661. 



reformatory movements. 287 

under the name of Cardea, with the " power of the key," 
was worshiped in Rome, with Janus, many years before. * 
Hence, perhaps, the two keys that the Pope emblazons 
on his arms, as the ensigns of h's spiritual authority. 
The device was familiar to the Romans, and corre 
sponded with their ideas of such sovereignty. As the 
statue of Jupiter is now worshiped at Rome (or was 
until recently) as the veritable image of Peter, so the 
keys of Janus and Cybele have for ages been devoutly 
believed to represent the keys of the same august 
person. 

*Torke's "Pantheon," "Cybele," p. 153. London, 1806. 



THE BEGINNING OF POPERY. 



The year A. D. 434 is referred to for proof that the 
bishop of Rome exercised supreme authority over the 
Church, as to the right of calling- councils. With this 
view of the matter, a long letter from Sixtus III. to the 
Eastern bishops, as establishing several of the Papal 
prerogatives, is quoted by Bellarmine* and others to 
prove that councils ought to be called by none except 
the Pope, and by him alone. Sixtus is represented as 
saying: "The Emperor Valentinian has summoned a 
council by our authority." (It has been clearly proved, 
however, that the letter is wholly made up of passages 
borrowed from the Eighth Council of Toledo, from 
Gregory I., from Felix III., from Adrian and from the 
Theodosian and Jus'inian codes; and, therefore, evi- 
dently spurious, and the passage in question forged, in 
order to introduce a sentence supposed to have been 
passed by the Emperor Valentinian. ) A charge of 
immorality has been invented against Sixtus, who is 
supposed to have written <" u e letter on the occasion of 
his having cleared himself Defore a council, but the acts 
of that council are so manifestly fabulous that even 
Binius and Baronius have been forced, by unquestion- 
able evidence, to give them up, though the Emperor, 
whom the acts suppose to have assisted at the council, 
is said to have referred the pronouncing of the sentence 
to the Pope himself, "because the judge of all ought to 



*Bell. de. Concl., Jib. 2, c. 12. 

(288) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 289 

be judged by none." There can be no doubt that it 
was in order to establish this maxim that the acts of this 
council were forged, as well as those of the alleged pre- 
vious Council of Sinuessa (A. D. 303), which is supposed 
to have condemned Marcellinus, and which, at the 
expense of this man's reputation, is cited to exalt the 
See of Rome. 

No writers earlier than Anastasius, librarian of the 
Vatican, who flourished in the ninth century, and the 
historian Platina, who died in 148 1, have treated the 
charge against Sixtus as a serious fact. This letter, with 
other palpable forgeries, was for a long time received 
as genuine, but it is now wholly renounced. ( "If the 
Roman system be of God [says Collette in "The Novel- 
ties of Romanism"], and the Roman Church founded 
upon a rock, against which the gates of hell shall never 
prevail, surely falsehood, fraud and forgeries were not 
required to prop it up."; To the acts of the council 
referred to are added those of the judgment, supposed 
to have been given at Rome, on the occasion of an 
appeal made to that See by one Polychronius, said to 
have been bishop of Jerusalem, and to have appealed 
from the judgment of his colleagues in the East to that 
of the bishop of Rome. This judgment has also been 
for a long time held up as genuine, to prove that East- 
ern bishops appealed to the bishop of Rome. Nicholas 
I., in the ninth century, appealed to these acts as genu- 
ine in a letter which he wrote to the Emperor Michael. 
But that they are shameful forgeries is palpable on the 
face of them. It is upon such a rotten foundation as 
this — a foundation of tradition and lying assumptions — 
that Romanism is built. C( Antiquity," indeed! yes, the 
antiquity of Egyptian mysticism and Roman paganism 1 



29O THE BEGINNING OF POPERY. 

The judgment is supposed to have been given while the 
Emperor Valentinian was the seventh time consul with 
Avienus, that is, no fewer than eleven years after the 
death of Sixtus III. Besides, it is manifest from the 
acts of the Councils of Ephesus (A. D. 431) and Chalce 
don (A. D. 451), that Juvenalis assisted at both as 
bishop of Jerusalem ; and the first of these two councils 
was held a year before the election of Sixtus III., and 
the latter eleven years after his death (Sixtus became 
bishop of Rome A. D. 432, and died A. D. 440) ; so 
that Polychronius was not bishop of Jerusalem in his 
time. Indeed, it may be questioned whether there ever 
was a bishop of Jerusalem bearing that name; it can not 
be found in any catalogues of the bishops of that city 
that have been handed down to us.* 

These vain and pompous bishops had a sweet time of 
it. They assumed to feed the flock of God, but the 
flock was consumed by them. Men who love office and 
high salaries have, in every age, assumed that the com- 
mon herd of humanity can not live and flourish without 
pastors — a set of titled land-sharks, who, instead of 
feeding and sustaining the flock of God, devour the flock 
of God. As long as these bishops and pastors have 
good livings, and as long as the flocks are safe from 
prowling wolves, these officers are ever so faithful and 
courageous ; but when the wolf approaches, breathing 
out slaughter, and the salary is ( xhausted, behold how 
many abandon their charges and flee to the mountains 
for safety ! 

Leo I. (A. D. 450) seems to have been the first bishop 
of Rome who interfered with the election of bishops in 
other dioceses. He is reported to have interposed in 



*See Bower's History of the Popes, vol. ii., pp. 5-6. London, 1750. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 29 1 

the institution of Anatolius, "by the favor of whose 
assent he obtained the bishopric of Constantinople";* 
and he is stated to have confirmed Maximus, of Antioch, 
and Donatus, an African bishop. But, on the other 
hand, other bishops arrogated the same privilege — for 
instance, Lucifer, a Sardinian bishop, ordained Paulinus, 
bishop of Antioch ; Theophilus, of Alexandria, ordained 
Chrysostom; Eustathius, of Antioch, ordained Evagrius, 
bishop of Constantinople, etc.; and Acacius and Patro- 
philus expelled Maximus, and instituted Cyril, bishop 
of Jerusalem, in his stead. All these acts, and many 
more that might be cited, were done without any refer- 
ence to the bishop of Rome. Here we have the battle 
of the bishops— the raging battle for supremacy. Is it 
not remarkable that we read of no such functionaries, 
and of no such ungodly stratagems, in the apostolic age ! 

We are still in the mystical regions of the fifth cen- 
tury, tracing out the successive innovations which cor- 
rupted the primitive Church, and which, by degrees, led 
the Church into the wilderness, where its identity was 
entirely lost to view. We are tracing out "the mystery 
of iniquity," as set forth by the apostle Paul in Second 
Thessalonians, second chapter, which he calls "that man 
of sin," "the son of perdition," who, as the represen- 
tative of Popery, "opposes and exalts himself above all 
that is called God, or that is worshiped ; so that he as 
God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he 
is God." 

About A. D. 450, Leo, bishop of Rome, arrogantly 
assumed an authority never before attempted by any of 
his predecessors, declaring that the supreme authority 
over Western churches rested in him as bishop of Rome. 



*Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, iv., col. 847. Paris, 1671. 



292 THE BEGINNING OF POPERY. 

"In the chair of Peter," he said, "dwelleth the ever- 
living power, the superabundant authority." The cir- 
cumstances attending this assumption of authority are 
important to be noted, as it obtained the sanction of 
the Emperor. Hilary, metropolitan bishop of Aries, 
assumed the right of ordaining all Gallican bishops. 
Leo was made jealous because this authority was vested 
in a rival. Becoming highly incensed, he brought 
false accusations against Hilary (see his 9th and 10th 
Epistles), and eventually appealed to Valentinian III., 
at this time Emperor of the West, a weak prince, who 
could not cope with a man of Leo's craft, address and 
ambition. Leo represented Hilary as a disturber of the 
peace, a rebel against the Apostolic See, and even 
against His Majesty. The Emperor was induced to 
issue the famous ' 'rescript," vesting in the bishop of 
Rome an absolute and unlimited authority over the 
Gallican churches and bishops. This "rescript" was 
addressed to Aetius, general of the Roman forces in 
Gaul, under pretense of maintaining peace and tran- 
quillity in the Church, and in which l ' rescript" he 
stigmatizes Hilary as a traitor, and as an enemy both to 
the Church and State. There is strong presumptive 
evidence that this document was dictated by Leo him- 
self. It is set out in full by Baronias in his Annals 
(Ann. 445). We transcribe the following passage to 
illustrate the nature of the power now first usurped by 
the bishop of Rome : 

" Tn order, therefore, to prevent even the least disturbance in the 
churches, and that discipline may not thereby be infringed, we decree 
that, hereafter and forever, not only no Gallic bishops, but no bishop 
of any other province, be permitted, in contradiction of ancient cus- 
tom, to do anything without the authority of the venerable Pope of 
the Eternal City; but, on the contrary, to them and to all men, let 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2p3 

whatsoever the authority of the Holy See hath ordained, or doth or shall 
ordain, be as law ; so that any bishop being summoned to the judg- 
ment-seat of the Roman Pontiff, be thereunto compelled by the governor 
of the province." 

Thus we see how the secular arm was made subser- 
vient to ecclesiastical usurpation, the very thing that 
superinduced the dark ages, and out of which for the 
last four hundred years the Church has been trying to 
extricate itself. Hilary, and with him other Gallican 
bishops, opposed to the last this Papal encroachment, 
and they would never acknowledge the authority of the 
bishop of Rome. Notwithstanding Hilary's alleged 
traitorous conduct and repudiation of one of the alleged 
fundamentals of the Church of that age, "the sum and 
substance of Christianity," as the noted Bellarmine puts 
it, this same Hilary is claimed by the modern Church of 
Rome as a canonized saint, standing side by side with 
his opponent and oppressor, Leo ! The framer of this 
edict did not hesitate to record a deliberate untruth 
when "ancient custom " was invoked as authority. No 
such authority can be adduced,* and even Leo himself 
did not, for a considerable length of time after the time 
alluded to, claim the authority of ordaining bishops all 
over the Western provinces, for in his eighty-ninth 
epistle, addressed to the bishops of Gaul, he expressly 
disclaimed the authority. "We do not," he said, 
"arrogate to ourselves a power of ordaining in your 
provinces ;"f and this would warrant us in suspecting 



*It was only a few years previous to this, A. D. 421, that the 
Emperor Theodosius referred the dispute of the election of Perigencs 
to the See of Patrse in Achaia, one of the provinces of Illyricum, to 
the bishop of that diocese, after he had consulted the bishop of Con- 
stantinople. See Cod. Theod., 1, 45, de Episcop , 1, 6. 

fP. Leo, Ep. 89, quoted by Barrow. See "On the Pope's Suprem- 
acy," p. 343, Revised Edit. London, 1849. 



294 THE BEGINNING OF POPERY. 

that the edict itself is, to a great extent, spurious. But 
it must be specially noted, says (Toilette, as a fact that, 
while Leo placed himself at the head of the Western 
bishops, he admitted the superior authority of the 
State, appealing, on all occasions, to the Emperor as 
his superior in ecclesiastical matters, under whose 
authority alone, since the appearance of the first Chris- 
tian emperor, all the early general councils were con- 
voked, who, as Eusebius expresses the sentiment of 
those days (referring to Constantine), ''as a common 
bishop appointed by God, did summon synods of God's 
ministers."* 

Here follow other innovations upon the apostolic 
order of things. But up to this date we find no trace 
of the origin of infant baptism, nor any trace of the 
substitution of sprinkling for immersion. We find that 
in 460, Leo, bishop of Rome, ordered the observance 
of four fasts, namely, Lent, Whitsuntide, the Seventh 
and Tenth Months. 



Euseb. de Vit. Const. 1, 44, p. 524. Cantab, 1720. 



INVOCATION OF SAINTS. 



The first recorded act we can find of the invocation 
of a saint, is when the body of Chrysostom was trans- 
ported to Constantinople in 470. The Emperor Theo- 
dosius knelt down before it, prayed for it to forgive 
his parents, who had persecuted it while living-. But 
this profane superstition was rebuked by the so-called 
"Fathers of the Church" at the time of its occurrence. 

Nicephorus, in his Ecclesiastical History, informs us 
that one Peter Gnapheous, patriarch of Antioch (A. D. 
470), was the first who introduced invocation of saints 
into the prayers of the Church, and ordered that the 
"Mother of God" should be named in every prayer. 
But this man was infected with the Eutychian heresy, 
for which cause he was condemned by the Fourth Gen- 
eral Council. A superstition, which was hitherto only 
private, became public ; the commemoration of the 
saints was changed into invocation ; preachers, instead 
of addressing their discourse to the living, to excite 
them to imitate the actions of their dead, began now to 
direct their prayers to the dead on behalf of the living. 
But, as yet, the practice was restricted to a sect of the 
Greeks; the Latins did not receive the doctrine till one 
hundred and twenty years further down the stream of 
innovation, where the stream began to widen more and 
more. 



(295) 



THE EUCHARIST. 



About A. D. 49 another innovation was attempted, 
but, for the time being, it was checked. In the cele- 
bration of the "eucharist," a custom had arisen of 
soaking or dipping the bread for those who would not 
drink wine. Julius, bishop of Rome in A. D. 340, 
condemned this practice, notwithstanding which fact, 
the custom was subsequently reintroduced intc the 
Roman Church. About A. D. 440 the Manichees, who 
held wine in abhorrence, attempted to introduce the 
pactice of taking the communion under one species 
only, namely, the bread. (Parenthetically we would 
remark that some of the Manichees still survive, judg- 
ing by the disturbance they raise in some of our con- 
gregations.) Leo (A. D. 450)* and Gelasius (A. D. 
492), both bishops of Rome, condemned this heresy in 
express terms, and ordered that the communion should 
be received entire, as instituted by our Lord, or not at 
all. The words of Gelasius are so precise and so con- 
tradictory to the teaching of modern Rome, that we 
have only to quote them to convict the Roman Church 
of imposing on believers a doctrine most emphatically 
condemned by a bishop of their own Church. His 
words are : 

" We find that some, having received a portion of the holy body 
only, do abstain from the cup of the holy blood, who, doubtless 
(because they are bound by I know not what superstition), should 



'Leon. Mag. Oper. Lut, 1623 col. 108, Sermon iv., de Quadrag. 

(296) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 297 

receive the whole sacrament, or be driven from the whole; for the dividing of 
one and the same mystery can not be done without sacrilege."* 

As connected with what many theologians call the 
eucharist, and, as we learn from the New Testament, 
improperly, this period should not be passed over 
without recording the deliberate opinion of this same 
Gelasius. bishop of Rome, on what is now deemed a 
fundamental doctrine of the Roman Church of the 
present day. We allude to transubstantiation ; that is, 
the alleged conversion of the substance and nature of 
the elements of bread and wine, after the consecration 
by the priest, into " the very and real body and blood" of 
our Savior Jesus Christ. We place in parallel columns 
the dictum of Gelasius and the decree of Trent, clearly 
showing that transubstantiation was an invention after 
this date. 



GELASIUS, A. D. 492. 

" Certainly the sacrament of the 
body and blood of our Lord, which 
we receive, are a divine thing ; be- 
cause by these we are made partak- 
ers of the divine nature. Never- 
theless, the substance or nature of 
the bread and wine cease not to 
exist; and, assuredly, the image 
and similitude of the body and blood 
of Christ are celebrated in the ac- 
tion of the mvsteries." 



DECREE OF TREXT, A. D. 1551. 

"By the consecration of the 
bread and wine, the whole substance 
of the bread is converted into the 
substance of the body of Christ, 
and the whole substance of the wine is 
converted into the substance of his 
blood ; which conversion is suit 1 
ably and properly called by the 
Catholic Church, transubstantia- 
tion."! 



The contradiction between the opinion of Pope 
Gelasius and the decree of the Trent Council, which 



*Gelas. in Corp. Juris Canon, Dacret. Grat. tert. pars, de consecr. 
dist., ii. chap., col. 1,168. Ludg., 1661. And torn, i., col. 1,918. 
Ludg., 1671. (The Latin text is before us.) 

fConcil. Trid. Sessio XIII , Decret. de Sanct. Euchar. Sacramento, 
3ap. iv., De Transubstantiatione. 



298 THE EUCHARIST. 

now molds and directs the power ar\d politics of the 
Church of Rome, is so manifest, that '.10 one can be 
surprised to find a desperate attempt made to explain 
away the otherwise apparent heresy of an early bishop 
of Rome. Baronius and Be/Jarmine were foremost in 
their endeavors to explain the difficulty boldly confront- 
ing them. They hit upon the expedient of declaring 
that some other person of \V e name of Gelasius, but not 
Gelasius the bishop, was. the writer of the treatise in 
question. The Roman (LV.holic historian, Dupin, how- 
ever, has exposed the ho/lowness of this "pious fraud," 
and proves incontestable that the work in question is 
the genuine production of Pope Gelasius, who was 
bishop of Rome A. D. 492,* and by holding on to this 
doctrine, the Church of Rome stands convicted before 
the intelligent world of introducing a shameful innova- 
tion into the creed of the Apostolic Church. 



*Vide Dupin. Ecc. Hist., vol. i., p. 520. Dublin, 1723. 



IMAGES AND EXTREME UNCTION. 



At the beginning of the sixth century (A. D. 500) 
images began to be used in the churches, but as histori- 
cal memorials only (we recently saw the image of Presi- 
dent Garfield in a Sunday school room, which is not an 
uncommon sight in certain localities), for which purpose 
alone they continued to be used for about one hundred 
years thereafter. Even this use of images received from 
various bishops severe reprobation. Within their sev- 
eral dioceses they caused them to be broken in pieces, 
in regular iconoclastic style. This was the incipient 
stage of image worship. Its full development is yet to 
come. 

Though the gift of miraculous healing ceased with the 
apostles, yet, about A. D. 528, some imaginative here- 
tics retained the use of unction, no doubt in imitation of 
the practice referred to by the apostle James in his 
Epistle (v. 14). Bathers on leaving the bath, and 
wrestlers on entering the arena, were, at the time of 
which we write, anointed with oil. Christians, in imi- 
tation of these customs, anointed with oil those who 
were baptized (immersed), as being purified and singled 
out to contend with the world. This unction, as yet, 
formed no part of the "sacrament," which Rome subse- 
quently incorporated in her Seven Sacraments. The 
Valentinian heretics arrogated to themselves the gift of 
the apostles, and anointed their sick with oil on the 
aporoach of death. They pretended that this anointing, 

(299) 



300 IMAGES AND EXTREME UNCTION. 

accompanied with prayers, would conduce to the salva- 
tion of the soul, though not to the healing of the body. 
This superstition found no supporters except among this 
sect of heretics Innocent I., in his letter to Decentius. 
bishop of Eugubium, refers to the custom of anointing 
the sick with oil, which was to be exercised not merely 
by the priesthood, but by all the faithful, and was, 
therefore, evidently not considered a sacrament. The 
practice subsequently gained ground, and about A. D. 
523, Felix IV., bishop of Rome, engrafted it on other 
religious ceremonies, and first instituted the right of 
extreme unction, by declaring that such as were in 
extremis (at the point of death) should be anointed.* 
Ceremonies were, in course of time, superadded, and 
ultimately, but long after, extreme unction was made to 
receive the quality of a sacrament. It is evident that 
this pretended sacrament is derived chiefly from pagan- 
ism, as are many other rites and dogmas now recognized 
and legalized, not only by the Papal Church, but also in 
Protestant churches. 

In A. D. 529, Benedict, of Nursia, founded the order 
of Benedictine monks, f 

In A. D. 535, Agapetus I. ordained processions 
before the festival of Easter. Processions, as religious 
rites, are of great antiquity, and evidently of pagan 
origin. With the Greeks and Romans they took place 
chiefly on the festivals of Diana, Bacchus, Ceres, and 
other deities ; also before the opening of the games in 
the Circus; and in the spring, when the fields were 
sprinkled with holy water to increase their fertility. 



* Polydore Vergil, b. v., c. iii., p 102. London, 1551. 
fMosheim's Ecc. Hist., Cent, yi., pt. ii., p. 448, vol. i. London, 



1825. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 3OI 

The pagan priests were accustomed to head them, car- 
rying images of the gods and goddesses to be propi- 
tiated, and either started from certain temples or from 
the capital. The first processions mentioned in eccle- 
siastical history are those set en foot at Constantinople, 
in the time of Chrysostom. The Arians of that city, 
being forced to hold their meetings outside of the city, 
went thither night and morning, singing anthems. 
Chrysostom, to prevent them from perverting the Cath- 
olics, adopted counter processions, in which the clergy 
and people marched by night, singing hymns and carry- 
ing crosses and torches. From this period the custom 
of processions was introduced into the Eastern and 
Western Churches.* 

In A. D 538. Vigilius, bishop of Rome, ordered that 
the priest, standing at the altar, should turn his face to 
the east, which was an old pagan custom ; and from this 
there originated another custom, that of placing the altar 
to the east of the chapel. -^Vitruvius, an eminent archi- 
tect of the age of Augustus, informs us that when the 
pagans built their temples, they placed their choir and 
principal idols toward the east. (Even in this enlight- 
ened age some congregations of professed Christians find 
it difficult to locate the organ and the choir.) "Let 
those," he said, " who sacrifice toward the altars, look 
to the east of the heavens, as also the statue which is to 
stand in the temple, * * * for it is necessary 
that the altars of God be turned to the east, "f The 
ancient Romans turned to the east when they sacrificed. 
The custom, therefore, was of pagan origin. Mosheim, 



*Chrysost. Or. eontr. lud. et theatre; Basil Ep. 207, al. 03 
Ambrose Ep. 40 ad Theodos. n. 14. 

fLib. iv., c. v., Edit, de Laet. Amst., 1049. 



302 IMAGES AND EXTREME UNCTION. 

in his chapter on "Rites and Ceremonies," says that 
" nearly all the people of the East, before the Christian 
Era, were accustomed to worship with their faces turned 
toward the sun rising; for they all believed that God, 
whom they supposed resembled light, or rather to be 
light, and whom they limited as to place, had his resi 
dence in that part of the heavens where the sun rises. 
When they became Christians they rejected the ern> 
neous belief; but the custom which originated from it, 
and which was very ancient and universally prevalent, 
they retained. Not to this hour has it been wholly laid 
aside. "* The ancient idolaters used to worship the sun, 
turning to the east (Ezek. viii. 16, and Deut. iv. 19). 
The Manichees also prayed toward the east. Leo I., 
bishop of Rome (A. D. 443), ordained that, in order to 
discern Catholics from heretics, the former should turn 
toward the west to pray, f In the Christian temples at 
Antioch, in Syria, the altars were placed toward the 
west, and not toward the east.J 

To Vigilius is also attributed the institution of the 
feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, or Candle 
Mass. That was also of pagan origin. The pagans 
were accustomed, in the beginning of February, to cele- 
brate the feast of Proserpine with burning of tapers. 
To make the transiti »n more easy from paganism, they 
instituted on the same day a feast, and burned tapers in 
honor of the Virgin Mary. According to Picard, the 



*Eccl. Hist., cent, ii., pt. ii., cap. iv., sec. 7. 

f " Ad occidentem conversi Deum colerunt." Binius Concl., torn, i., 
fol. 932, Colon, 1G06. And Cardinal Baronius' Annal., ann. 443, 
num. 5, torn, vii., p. 556. 

^Socrat. Eccl. His*,., in Euseb., lib. v., c. xxii. London, 1709. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 



303 



institution of this feast is attributed to Gelasius I., in the 
year 496; and the procession ofzvax lights, to drive away 
evil spirits, to Sergius I., in the year 701. * 

^"Ceremonies et Continues Religieuses, vol. i., pt. ii., p. 163, notes c 
and d. Amsterdam, 1723. 



UNIVERSAL BISHOP. 



Toward the latter part of the sixth century (595), 
John, patriarch of Constantinople, assumed the title of 
Universal Bishop. Pelagius II , and after him his suc- 
cessor, Gregory, both bishops of Rome, were shocked 
at the assumption of such a title by any individual, and 
denounced the act in the strongest terms of reprobation. 
Gregory, in his letters to the Emperor, said: "I confi- 
dently assert whoever calls himself the universal bishop, 
is the forerunner of Antichrist." Here are his precise 
words : 

•' I, indeed, confidently assert that whosoever either calls himself, or 
desii\s lo ba called, Universal Priest, that person, in his vain elation, 
is the precursor of Antichrist, because, through his pride, he exalts 
himself above the others."* 

So spoke the bishop of Rome at that time. And as 
a question of historical fact, he publicly asserted that 
none of his predecessors did ever assume the impious 
title of " universal bishop." 

Pontifex Maximus was of pagan origin. Dionysius, 
of Halicarnassus, gives a description of the "Supreme 
Pontiff" of the ancient Romans in his "Life of Nunia 
Pompilius," as also does the historian Livy. We find 
corns in the time of the Caesars, on which the Emperor 
was called "Pont. Max," and even "Summits Sacer- 
dos." The heathen historian Zosimus (A. D. 426) 
gives the following account of the title before it was 



*Gregor. I., Epist., lib. v.; Epist. viii., opera., torn, ii., p. 742. 
Edit. Bened., 1705. 

(304) 



REFORMATORY .MOVEMENTS. 305 

assumed by a Catholic bishop. He says that "among 
the Romans, the persons who had the superintendence 
of sacred things were the pontifices, who are termed 
Zephyraei, if we trans^te the Latin word 'pontifices,' 
which means bridge-makers, into the Greek." He pro- 
ceeds : 

The origin of the appellation was this. At a period before mankind 
was acquainted with the mode of worshiping by statues, some images 
of the gods were made in Thessaly. As there were not then any tem- 
ples (for the use of them was likewise unknown), they fixed up these 
figures of the gods on a bridge over the river Pevensa, and called those 
who sacrificed to the god Zephyraei — priests of the bridge — from the 
place where the images were first erected. Hence the Romans, deriv- 
ing it from the Greeks, called their own priests Pontifices, and enacted 
a law that kiu^s, for the sake of dignity, should be considered of the 
number. The first of the kings who enjoyed this dignity was Numa 
Pompilius. After him it was conferred not only upon the kings, but 
upon Octavianus and his successors in the Roman Empire. Upon the 
elevation of any one to the imperial dignity, the pontifices brought him 
the priestly habit, and he was immediately styled Pontifex Maximus, or 
Chief Priest. All former emperors, indeed, appeared gratified with 
the dedication, and willingly adopted the title. Even Constantine 
himself, when he was emperor, accepted it, although he was seduced 
from the path of rectitude in regard to the sacred affairs, and had 
embraced the Christian faith. In like manner did all who succeeded 
him, till Valentinian Noleus ; but when the pontifices brought the 
sacred robe in the accustomed manner to Gratian, he, considering it a 
garment unlawful for a Christian to wear, rejected the offer. When 
the robe was returned to the priests who had brought it, their chief is 
said to have made an observation, '* If the Emperor refuses to become 
pontifex, we shall soon make one."* 

We shall have more to say about the supremacy of 
the Pope of Rome. We suppose those traditionists 
reasoned just as modern innovators reason, that because 
the Word of God does not expressly condemn innova- 



*Zosimus, b. iv., c. 36, p. 125. Edit. Graece et Latine, Lipsas, 1784 
-English translation. 



306 UNIVERSAL BISHOP. 

tions, or because of the silence of the Scriptures, there- 
fore, they may be received and innocently 'practiced. 
The reader will have noticed that in all the innovations 
we have introduced, running through four centuries, not 
an appeal was made to the New Testament for scriptural 
support. Because of the "silence of the Scriptures," 
tradition was introduced without stint, and " cunning 

o 

craftiness" superseded the law and authority of Jesus 
Christ 

The seventh century is prolific of outrageous innova- 
tions upon the primitive or apostolic Church. About 
the year 600, "saints" (so-called) began to occupy the 
places of the tl dci' mil tores" of the pagans; tl at is, of 
the little household gods of the pagans. To these 
"saints" churches or chapels were now dedicated, and 
festivals and sacrificing priests appointed, somewhat 
typical of the festivals and human mediators that have 
stealthily come in to disturb and neutralize the work of 
the reformers of the nineteenth century. Invocation of 
saints, which was hitherto a private superstition, now 
began to be publicly practiced, but not yet as an accepted 
church doctrine About the same time Gregory entered 
the name of the Virgin Mary in the Litanies, with the 
Or a pro nobis* — " pray for us," 

The modern dogma of the invocation of saints is also 
evidently derived directly from paganism. Apuleius, to 
whom we have already referred, in his book — il Dc Deo 
Socratis" — thus describes the pagan system: "There 
are," he said, "certain middle divinities, betwixt the 
high heavens and this lower earth, by whom our prayers 
and merits are carried to the gods. They are cnlled 
demons in Greek , they carry up the prayers of men to 

*Polydore Vergil, b. viii., c. i.> p. 143. London, 1551. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 307 

the gods, and bring down the favors of the gods to men ; 
they go and come, to carry on one side the petitions, 
on the other relief; they are as interpreters and salva- 
tion-carriers from the one to the other." Is not this a 
similar dogma to that which we find in the Trent Cate- 
chism? Let us see: " We ask the saints, because they 
have credit with God, that they may take us into their 
protection, to the end that they may obtain from God 
those things we stand in need of"* Different men and 
trades of the present age have their patron saints, and 
so had the pagans of old. 

About the beginning of the seventh century the doc- 
trine of purgatory began to assume a more defined form, 
though the theory as to the nature of the punishments 
differed from the Romish teaching of the present day. 
It came now to be supposed that departed souls expiated 
their own sins (a doctrine not now admitted, for, in the 
Popish purgatory, sins are supposed to be forgiven) in 
various ways — by baths, ice, hanging in air, etc. This 
was Gregory's theory, f founded on well-known pagan 
fables. 



*Cat. Concl. Trid., part iv., cap. vii., q. 3. 

fGreg., lib. iv., Dialog., c. iv., p. 464. torn. ii. Paris, 1705. 



SACRIFICES FOR THE DEAD. 



The Eucharist, which hitherto had been regarded as 
simply a sacrament for the living, now began to be offered 
as a sacrifice for the dead. The offerings bestowed in 
memory of the piety of the departed were in the form 
of alms;* these now were called oblations, and formed 
part of the sacrament itself, and were offered in expia- 
tion of the sins of the departed. On receiving the offer- 
ings made by the people, the officiating ministers 
besought God that those fruits of charity might become 
acceptable to him. The prayers or orisons offered on 
these occasions were retained, but instead of being 
rehearsed over the eleemosynary gifts of the faithful, 
they were pronounced over the elements of bread and 
wine, designated the body of Jesus Christ. 

The mists of superstition grow denser and denser as 
we come down the stream of time, and as we dive into 
the Dark Ages. Gregory I. composed the office of the 
mass; and, according to Platina, in reducing the service 
to a uniformity of worship in the Western churches, the 
universal use of the Latin language was enjoined. 
Since then the Latin tongue has ever continued to be 



*"Scultetus Medulla Theologise Patrum." Amstel., 1603, p. 307. 
On examination of Scultetus' work, the reader will be satisfied that the 
attempt to identify the Romish mass with the oblations or offerings of 
the early Christians must be abandoned by the modern Church of 
Rome. Scultetus was a Professor of Divinity at the University of 
Heidelberg (1598) ; see also B. Rhenan, in loc. Annot. to Tertullian. 
Frank, 1597, p. 43. 

(3o8) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 309 

the medium through which the basest superstitions have 
been communicated to the people, and a dialect in which 
the plain will of God has been purposely concealed by 
a wily priesthood. All through the Dark Ages learning 
and literature were confined to a few persons of the 
Papal hierarchy, and the priesthood of Rome, having 
hidden away all scriptural knowledge in a dead lan- 
guage, and beyond the reach of the masses, mentally 
and morally enslaved the ignorant masses; and to this 
day the mummeries of Rome, mystic Babylon, are 
repeated through the Latin language. 



UNCTION AND WAX CANDLES. 



Gregory likewise introduced unction into priestly 
orders, and enjoined the adoption of pontifical habits. 
He ordained the use of incense and the relics of saints 
at the consecration of chapels, spaces for the reception 
of tapers, and their being lighted in daytime. He 
ordered pictures of the Virgin Mary to be carried about 
in processions, and statues to be erected in church chap- 
els for religious purposes ; and, according to Polydore 
Vergil, first ordered that neither flesh, milk, butter, 
eggs, etc., should be eaten on days set apart for fasting.* 

Just think of it ! —even some of the Disciples of 
Christ, who claim to be par excellence the restorers of 
primitive Christianity, construct "memorial windows" 
in houses of worship, with the names of sinful saints 
pictured upon them, and these names, or images, are to 
be remembered and adored because of the money the 
donors 'have invested in them ! We have seen the 
images of presidents and governors suspended behind 
the pulpit. Are these our patron saints? Is this the 
doctrine of the invocation of saints? Is it any wonder 
that some of our young clergy have an itching for epis 
copacy, and that one of them recently predicted that 
before ten years our preachers would adopt some form 
of episcopacy. As to fioiver, some already occupy that 
delectable position. 

In A. D. 604, Sabinian, successor to Gregory, is said 



*B. vi., c. iv., p. 119. London, 1551. 

(3io) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 311 

by Platina to have ordered that lamps should be kept 
perpetually burning in the places of meeting. This, as 
is generally known, is still enjoined by the Papal ritual. 
The Egyptians, according to Herodotus, were the inven- 
tors of the ceremony. The pagan Romans afterward 
adopted it, the office of the vestal virgins being to keep 
these lamps always lighted. Apuleius describes the 
pagan Roman processions as being attended by priests 
in surplices, the people in white linen vestments singing 
hymns and carrying wax candles in their hands.* This 
ceremony is practiced to this day in Romish countries. 
Lactantius often refers to the custom as a ridiculous 
superstition, deriding the Romans '" for lighting up can- 
dles for God, as if he lived in the dark.' f 

In the use of these lighted tapers there is supposed to 
be a hidden mystery. Among the modern Romans, as 
well as among the heathen, to whose religions the prac- 
tice is common, it has reference to some evil spirits 
which are supposed to be present. Among the Tungu- 
sian, near the lake Baikal, in Siberia, wax tapers are 
placed before the gods or idols of that country. J In 
the- Molucca Islands wax tapers are used in the worship 
of Nito, or devil, whom these islanders adore (Hurd's 
"Rites and Ceremonies," p. 91, col. i., and p. 95, col. 
2). "In Ceylon," says the same author, "some devo- 
tees, who are not priests, erect chapels for themselves, 
but in each of them they are obliged to have an image 
of Buddha, and light up tapers or wax candles before it, 



-Apuleius, vol. i., Metam. cap. ix., pp. 1,014-1,010, and cap. x., 
1,010-1,051. Leipsic, 1842. 

fLactantius, " Institut.," lib. vii., cap. ii., p. 289. Cambridge, 
1685. 

+See "Asiatic Journal," vol. xvii., pp. 593, 696. 



312 UNCTION AND WAX CANDLES. 

and adorn it with flowers." Now mark, if you please, 
the contrast between Romanism and paganism ! The 
conversions they boast of can only be a change of name. 
So far we have not found the organ or the violin, or the 
trumpet, in the worship of the first six centuries ; but 
we shall find the organ in the worship before long. 

In A D. 607, Phocas having obtained the empire by 
the murder of the Emperor Mauricius, his predecessor, 
with his wife and five children, made common cause 
with Boniface III. against Cyriacus, bishop of Constan- 
tinople, who refused to countenance his murderous and 
traitorous deeds, f The compact was, that Boniface 
should recognize Phocas as lawful emperor, and that the 
latter should recognize the Church of Rome to be the 
head of churches, and the bishop of that see as sover- 
eign and universal bishop. /This spiritual title was thus 
given and confirmed to the bishop of Rome by imperial 
edict, and not by divine right. It is under this title — 
"universal bishop" — that the succeeding bishops of 
Rome held their ecclesiastical "primacy." 

In the same year Mohammed appeared in Arabia; so 
that the Eastern and Western Antichrists appeared sim- 
ultaneously. From this period we date the reign of 
Popery in fact, and properly. Both these despotisms 
become a terrible scourge to the Church of Jesus Christ, 
and corrupt and destroy it beyond description. No 
wonder "the woman [the Church of Christ] fled into 
the wilderness, where she has a place prepared of God, 
that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred 
and threescore days " — twelve hundred and sixty years 
(Rev. xii. 6). Superstition now spread rapidly, and the 
simplicity and purity of the Christian faith soon became 
almost extinct. 



FEASTS OF ALL SAINTS. 



In the year 610, Boniface IV. consummated the act 
of pagan idolatry by opening- the Pantheon at Rome, 
and substituting therein images of the so-called saints, in 
place of the pagan deities, consecrating the place for 
that purpose; hence the " Feasts of All Saints." At 
this time also tonsure was introduced. The tonsure was 
an oid pagan custom, and was practiced in imitation of 
the ancient priests of Isis. * The tonsure was the visible 
inauguration of the priests of Bacchus. Herodotus 
mentions this tonsure in these words : 

The Arabians acknowledged no other gods than Bacchus and Urania 
(i. e., the queen of heaven), and they say that their hair is cut in the 
same manner as Bacehus's is cut; now they cut it in a circular form, 
shaving it around the temples. f 

The priests of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, were 
always distinguished by the shaving of their heads. £ 
The distinguishing feature of the priests of pagan Rome 
was the shaven head. || and this was equally so in China 
and India. More than five hundred years before the 
Christian Era, Gautama Buddha, when instituting the 
sect of Buddhism in India, first sh ived his own head in 
obedience, as he pretended, to a divine command, and 

-Polvd. Vergil (book iv., c. 10) thinks this custom came from Egypt, 
where the priests were shaven in token of sorrow for the death of their 
god Apis. 

filer. >d. " Historia," lib. iii., cap. S, p. 185. Paris, 1592. 

placrobius, lib. i., c. 23, p. 189, Sanct. Colon, 1521. 

||Tertullian, vol. ii., "Carrnina," pp. 1,105-1,106, Opera. Paris, 
1844. (313) 



314 FEASTS OF ALL SAINTS. 

was known by the title " shaved head " ; and " that ht 
might perform the orders of Vishnu, he formed a num- 
ber of disciples of shaved heads like himself."* The 
priests and Lev ites were forbidden to ' ' shave their heads 
in a round" (Ezek xliv. 20; Lev. xix. 27, and xx. 5). 
Modern Papists, not being under the Mosaic law, prefer 
the pagan custom. The custom of shaving the crown 
was adopted by the Donatists. Optatus, bishop of 
Mela, in Africa (A. D. 3/Oj, reproved them for this, 
saying : ' ' Show where it is commanded you to shave the 
heads of the priests ; whereas, on the contrary, there are 
so many examples furnished to show that it ought not 
to be."f It is certain that the custom was not sanc- 
tioned, if, indeed, it was not condemned, at the begin- 
ning of the fourth century ; for by the fifty -fifth canon 
of the Council of Elvira (at which nineteen bishops were 
present, including Hosius of Cordova, twenty-six priests 
assisting, besides deacons), it was declared that priests 
who had only a shaven crown iike idolatrous sacrificers, 
yet did not sacrifice to idols, after two years might 
receive communion. J 

It is apparent that when men once begin to drift away 
from the word of God, they immediately begin to take 
advantage of the "silence of the Bible," and, on this 
sophistical plea, they lose respect for the word of God 
by essaying to patch up human expediencies, by sub- 
mitting human plans, by trying to make the gospel 



*See Kennyd's "Buddha" in " Ancient Hindoo Mythology," pp. 
263-264. London, 1831. 

fOptatus, lib. contra Parinenion, Oper. de Schism. Donat. fol. 
Paris, 1679. 

JMosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, vii., part iL, p. 28, voL ii. London 
1768. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 3 I 5 

attractive and catching to a captious world, and by 
introducing novelties that " will do no harm," etc. 

We have it in history that in the year A. D. 617 invo- 
cation of saints generally was first used in the public 
liturgies in the Latin Church under Boniface V. In 
620, this same Boniface confirmed the infamous law by 
which churches became places of refuge to all who fled 
thither for protection. The custom has no doubt the 
merit of being of very ancient date, being of pagan 
origin,* and the Jews also encouraged it; but with this 
difference, that the Jews extended their protection to 
such who had committed crimes through some unfortu- 
nate accident, or without intention of malice; but the 
Romish priests threw the protection of the Church over 
notorious criminals, f 

In 631, the festival of the Exaltation of the Cross was 
instituted by the Emperor Heraclius ; which was also 
established in the West by Honorius I., bishop of Rome, 
though Polydore Vergil places the Invention and Exal- 
tation of the Cross in the year 1260, which is probably 
more correct (P. Vergil, b. vi., c. vii., p. 122; London, 

155 i- t) 

*Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., cent, vii., part ii., p. 28, vol. ii. London, 
1768. 

fPicard's u Ceremonies et Contumes Religieuses, " p. 29, vol. i. 
Amsterdam,- 1723. 

JSee Baronius' Annals, ad. ann. 628, and Beaumgarten's " Earlant- 
erung der Christi Alterthumer," p. 310, quoted in Reid's edition of 
Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., 1852, p. 253. 



ELECTION OF BISHOPS BY EMPERORS. 



It was in the year 666 that Vitalius, bishop of Rome, 
first ordered divine service to be celebrated everywhere 
in the Latin tongue, * in which mystic language, 
unknown by the common people, the deviltry of Rome 
was to be carried on. But it does not appear that this 
order took the form of a binding decree, since the Lat- 
eral! Council, A. D. 1215 (as after observed), relaxed 
the custom under peculiar circumstances. 

Fleury records the first instance of a council of bish- 
ops (682) undertaking to absolve the subjects of a king 
from their allegiance ; which assumed power soon passed 
into the hands of the Pope f 

Before this time (A. D. 685), the election of the 
bishop of Rome had been reserved for the confirmation 
of the Emperor; and this rule continued in operation 
until the time of Pelagius II., A. D. 578. Platina, in 
the life of this Pope, said: " Nothing was then done by 
the clergy in the election of a pope, unless the Emperor 
approved the election."! Pelagius was chosen during 
the siege of Rome, but he sent Gregory, who afterward 
became Pope, to t'he Emperor to excuse himself for hav- 
ing been elected without his confirmation. Gregory I. 

*\Volphius Lect. Memorab. Centenar. Numeris Beslia Apoc. xiii., 
p. 149. Frankfort, 1071. 

fFleury's Eecl. flist., lib. xl., p. 71, torn. ix. Paris, 1703. And 
torn, ix., p. 71. Paris, 17G9. 

JPlat. in Pelagio II., p. 18. Colon, 1568. 

(3i6) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 317 

was also elected by the Emperor's consent. The elec- 
tion continued to be in this form until 685, when the 
Emperor Constantine first remitted the right in favor of 
Benedict II., the fact being- that the emperors of the 
East had almost lost their influence in the West./ But 
when the Empire was re-established in the West under 
Charlemagne, Adrian I. (A. D. 795), in synod, delivered 
over to the Emperor the right and power of electing the 
bishop of Rome and ordaining to this See. He, more- 
over, decreed that archbishops and bishops in every 
province should receive investiture from him ; and if a 
bishop were not commended and invested by the 
Emperor, he was not to be consecrated by any other ; 
and any person acting against this decree was to be 
subjected to the ban of anathema.J'^This is testified in 
the Roman canon law.* Louis, the son of Charle- 
magne, waved his right ; but Lothaire, his son, resumed 
and acted upon it. The right was maintained until the 
time of Adrian III. (885). The prerogative was not 
given up without a struggle. The Emperor still elected 
some bishops of Rome after this. Some, indeed, were 
deemed anti-popes ; yet Clement II. (A. D. 1046) is 
reckoned a true pope, though elected by the Emperor. 
It was not really till A. D. 1080, under Gregory VII., 
that the Emperor's right was wholly superseded by the 
Curia Romana, f as the judicial powers of the Pope are 
now designated. 

*Corp. Jur. Can., vol. i., dist. 63, cap. 22. Paris, 1695. 
fSee Burnet's Vindication of the Ordinations of the Church of Eng- 
land, pp. 51-99. London, 1677. 



INTRODUCTION OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC 



There is just the same scriptural authority for the 
use of the organ in Christian worship as there is for the 
use of the mass, image worship, invocation of saints, 
purgatory, auricular confession, etc., in Christian wor- 
ship. The Greeks as well as Jews were wont to use 
instruments as accompaniments in their sacred songs. 
The converts to Christianity accordingly must have been 
familiar with this mode of singing ; yet it is generally 
believed that the primitive Christians failed to adopt the 
use of instrumental music in their religious worship. 
The Greek word (paXAeev (psallein), which the apostle 
uses in Eph. v. 19, has been taken by some critics to 
indicate that they sang with such accompaniments. 
This same is supposed by some to be intimated by the 
golden harps which John, in the Apocalypse, put into 
the hands of the four and-twenty elders. But if this be 
the correct inference, it is strange, indeed, that neither 
Ambrose (in Psl. i. Prcef p. 740) nor Basil (in Psl. i., 
vol. ii., p. 713) nor Chrysostom (Psl. xli. , vol. v., p. 
121), in the noble encomiums which they severally pro- 
nounce on music, makes any mention of instrumental 
music. Basil, indeed, expressly condemns it as minis- 
tering only to the depraved passions of men (Horn. iv. , 
vol. i., p. 33), and must have been led to this condem- 
nation because some had gone astray and borrowed this 
practice from the heathen. 

Thus it is reported that at Alexandria it was the cus- 

(318) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 319 

torn to accompany the singing- with the flute, which 
practice was expre-sly forbidden by Clement of Alexan- 
dria in A. D. 190 as too worldly, but he then instituted 
in its stead the use of the harp. In the time of Constan- 
tine the Great, the Ambrosian chant was introduced, 
consisting of hymns and psalms sung, it is said, in the 
first four keys of the ancient Greek. The tendency of 
this was to secularize the music of the Church and to 
encourage singing by a choir. 

The general introduction of instrumental music can 
certainly not be assigned to a date earlier than the fifth 
or sixth centuries ; yea, even Gregory the Great, w r ho, 
toward the end of the sixth century, added greatly to 
the existing church music, absolutely prohibited the use 
of instruments. Several centuries later the introduction 
of the organ in sacred service gave a place to instru- 
ments as accompaniments for Christian song, and from 
that time to this day they have been freely used with 
few exceptions. The first organ is believed to have 
been used in church service in the thirteenth century. 
Organs, however, were in use before this in theaters. 
They were never regarded with favor in the Eastern 
Church, and w T ere vehemently opposed in some of the 
Western churches. In Scotland no organ is allowed to 
this day, except in a few Episcopal churches.* 

The early reformers, when they came out of Rome, 
removed them as the monuments of idolatry. Luther 
called the organ an ensign of Baal; Calvin said that 
instrumental music was not fitter to be adopted into the 
Christian Church than the incense and the candlestick ; 
Knox called the organ a kist (chest) of whistles. The 
Church of England revived them, against a very strong 



*Cyc. Bib., Theo. and Eccl. Literature, vol. vi., p. 7")9. 



320 INTRODUCTION OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 

protest, and the English dissenters would not touch 
them.* 

Nero greatly admired the water-organ {Stteton., c. 41, 
"Reliquarn dici partem per organa hydraulica novi et 
ignoti generis circumdixit "). In ecclesiastical history 
Pope Vitalian I. figures as the introducer of the organ, 
and the date assigned is 666. St. Augustine and Isa- 
dore of Seville serve as authority for this statement. It 
appears, however, from the records of the Spanish 
Church, that the organ was used there two centuries 
previous to this date. In Africa the organ had been in 
common use for some time previous, and it is from that 
country probably that it was introduced into Spain. In 
the West the organ was not common until the tenth 
century. St. Aldhelm, who died in 709, describes one 
with golden pipes in England ; but as late as 757, when 
Pepin the Short received from Constantine Coprony- 
mus an organ as a present, it is mentioned as a great 
wonder. It was placed in the Church of St. Corneille, 
at Compiegne, but whether that instrument was then 
used for ecclesiastical purposes is a matter of contro- 
versy. The time when the wind organ took the place 
of the water-organ is not ascertained ; some say in the 
seventh century, f A bishop of Freysingen, Germany, 
in the ninth century sent to Pope John VIII., at Rome, 
an organ and singers, as a mark of distinguished honor. 

There is no warrant in the New Testament for their 
use. (a) There is no example of such by Peter, Paul, 
James, John, or the Master himself, nor by any others 
in the apostolic age; nor have we any in the first three 
centuries ; nor until the mystery of iniquity was strongly 

-Ibid, p. 762. 

fMcClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia, vol. vii., p. 425. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 321 

at work, (t/) We have no command either to make or 
to use them. It is claimed that (paXAovzeq in Eph. v. 19 
requires playing on strings ; but that is expressly 
declared to be done in the heart (see in a following para- 
graph), (c) We find no directions, formal or incidental, 
for their use ; while we have line upon line about sing- 
ing — what to sing, when to sing, how to sing. 

Instruments were not used in the worship of the 
ancient synagogue. They belonged to the tabernacle 
and the temple, especially the latter; but were never in 
the congregational assemblies of God's people. The 
trumpet and other loud instruments were used in the 
synagogue, not to accompany the psalm, but in cele- 
brating certain feasts (Lev xxv. 9; Num. x. 10 ; Psa. 
lxxxi. 3). There was a feast of trumpets (Lev. xxiii. 
24; Num. xxix. 1). They were used for proclamation 
in going to war, in moving the camps, in assembling the 
congregation, as well as in triumphs, coronations, and 
other extraordinary occasions (Num. x. 1-10; Lev. xxv. 
9;- 1 Kings i. 34; Joel ii. 1; Jer. vi. 1, et al.). Such 
celebrations resembled our day of independence, but 
were much mote devotional, and, withal, ceremonial in 
their meaning. Conrad Iken tells us that the Sabbath- 
day was introduced with blowing trumpets at the syna- 
gogues six times. At the first b'ast they dropped the 
instruments of husbandry and returned home from the 
field. This was on Friday evening, as we call it. At 
the second blast they closed all the offices, shops and 
places of business. At the third blast pots were 
removed from the fire, and culinary occupation was sus- 
pended. The other three blowings were to designate 
the line between common and sacred time. All of these 
uses, though connected with the worship, were entirely 



322 INTRODUCTION OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. 

different from the psalmody in which they were used at 
the temple; but (a) no hint is given in the Old Testa- 
ment or in the New that instruments were ever used in 
the synagogue worship. (b) Orthodox Jews do not 
allow the organ or any other -instrument in their syna- 
gogues; only Reformed or Liberal Jews have introduced 
the organ and many other innovations, (c) Archaeolo- 
gists (Prideaux, Hahn, Calmet, Townsend, et a/.) make 
no mention of instruments in the worship, while they 
describe minutely the furniture of the synagogue; and 
Hahn particularly notices the singing of the doxologies, 
such as Psa. lxxii. 18; lxviii i; xcvi. 6; cxiii. i. Iken 
Skives four doxologies for the Sabbath, but no or^an or 
harp * 

A fearful responsibility rests upon those persons who 
have introduced the organ or other instruments into the 
spiritual worship of God. Some weak-minded people, 
vain and thoughtless, might be excused on the ground 
of ignorance ; but what a terrible burden of responsibil- 
ity must rest upon editors and pastors and preachers, 
who, knowing that the use of the organ and select choirs 
in the public worship is wholly unscriptural, and an 
invention borrowed from the carnal world, nevertheless 
encourage these innovations by their silent approbation, 
and never lift as much as the little finger of rebuke. 
Once we were a unit; now we are divided; who is 
responsible — good men or bad men, God or the devil? 

*Cycl. Bib.. Theo. and Eccl. Literature. McClintock and Strong, 
vol. vi., p. 762. 



PRIVATE MASSES. 



About the beginning of the eighth century the prac- 
tice of saying private masses (that is, the priest commu- 
nicating alone without the people in attendance^ was 
introduced. This practice originated in the lukewarmness 
of the people, including the clergy, in their attend- 
ance on divine service. Formerly, the assembly com- 
municated every day in the week; but devotion waxing 
cold, the communion was restricted to Sundays and 
feast days, leaving the priest alone to officiate and com- 
municate on the other days. Hence solitary masses. 
The Capitular of Theodulf, bishop of Orleans (A. D. 
787), expressly forbade private or solitary masses, as 
did the Council of Metz, A. D. 813, and the Council 
of Paris, A. D, 829.* This practice seems to have been 
creeping in as early as the previous century; for it met 
the rebuke of Gregory I., who said: "The priest should 
never celebrate mass alone ; for as the mass can not be 
celebrated without the salutation of the priest and the 
answer of the people, it ought, consequently, by no 
means to be celebrated by a single individual ; for there 
ought to be present some to whom he may speak, and 
who, in like manner, ought to answer him, and he must, 
withal, remember that saying of Christ, ' Where two 
or three are gathered together in my name, I will be 
present with them.'"f The doctors of Trent, in the 

*Fleury's Eccl. Hist., liv., xlvi., p. 144, torn. x. Paris, J 704; and 
Neander's Church History, vol. v., p. 188. London, 1852. 

fGreg. in lib. Capitulari, cap. vii., apud Cassand, Liturg. 33, p. 
83. Paris, 1605. <3^) 



324 PRIVATE MASSES. 

sixteenth century, however, declared, in direct contra- 
diction to these earlier decisions, that " if any one shall 
say that private masses, in which the priest alone doth 
sacramentally communicate, are unlawful, and, there- 
fore, ought to be abrogated, let him be accursed."* 

The roundmss of the host was now insisted on by' 
the Romish Church. The shape is taken from the 
Egyptians. "The thin round cake occurs in all the 
Egyptian altars, "f The form symbolized the sun 
"But, then, what of it?" say some of our plastic and 
irrepressible scribes; "if the pagans practice a good 
thing, why may not the Roman Catholics?" And, by 
parity of reason, if the Methodists or Presbyterians 
practice a good thing, should the Disciples of Christ 
refuse to adopt the pleasing expediency because these 
parties have practiced it ? " How reason est thou, thou 
anti-progressive ? " 

In A. D. 750, Fleury, the Roman Catholic historian, 
tells us that the earliest instance of giving absolution to 
penitents immediately after confession, without waiting 
till their penance was fulfilled, occurred at this time in 
the rule established by Boniface. \ Stephen II. was the 
first bishop of Rome who was carried in procession on 
men's shoulders on the occasion of his election. This 
took place in A. D. 752. It was a pagan Roman 
custom. || 

At a council held (754) at Constantinople, image 

*Concl. Trid., can. viii., sess. xxii., p. 150. Paris, 1832. 

tSee Wilkinson's " Egyptians," vol. v., p. 358. London, 1837- 
1841. 

JFleury's Eccl. Hist., torn, ix., lib. xliii., p. 390. Paris, 1703; and 
torn, ix., p. 300. Paris, 1769. 

||Picard, "Ceremonies et Contumes Religieuses," vol. i., pt. ii., 
p. 50, note g. Amsterdam, 1723. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 325 

worship was condemned,* which fact shows that a 
speck of conscience still flickered here and there. It 
was this council which first enjoined, under anathema, 
the invocation of the Virgin Mary and other saints, f 
According to Fleury, Crodegang, bishop of Metz 
(763), first enjoined compulsory oral confession ; but 
this custom was restricted to his own monastery. J 
The same bishop instituted the ecclesiastical order of 
canons. || Nicholas II., in 1059, at a council in Rome, 
abrogated the ancient rules of the canons, and substi- 
tuted others in their place. Hence rose the distinction 
of secular and regular canons. The former observed 
the decree of Nicholas II.; the latter subjected them- 
selves to the more severe regulations of the bishop 
of Chartres, and were called Regular Canons of St. 
Augustine. § 

Hitherto the payment of tithes was enjoined, but not 
made compulsory ; but King Pepin (768) now ordered 
tithes to be paid by all persons to the clergy. ^f 

At a council held at Rome (769), a decree was passed 
that images should be honored, and the Council of Con- 
stantinople (A. D. 754) was anathematized.** 

*Labb. et Coss., Concl. Gen., torn, vi., col. 1,661. Paris, 1671. 

fLabb. Concl., torn, vii., col. 524. Paris, 1671. 

JFleury, Eccl. Hist., liv., xliii., pp. 425, 426, torn. ix. Paris, 1703. 

||Le Beuf. Memoire sur l'Histoire d'Auxerre, torn, i., p. 174. 
Paris, 1743. 

$Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., cent, xi., part ii., pp. 312, 313, vol. ii. 
London, 1758. 

^[Fleury, Eccl. Hist., liv., xliii., p. 445, torn. ix. Paris, 1703; and 
torn, ix., p. 416. Paris, 167'.). 

**Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, vi., col. 1,721.. Paris, 1671. 



IMAGES IN PUBLIC WORSHIP. 



Previous to this date (7S7), much altercation took 
place as to the introduction and use of images in public 
worship. Irene, the Empress of Constantinople, a 
pagan both by religion and nationality, a woman of 
notoriously bad character, who poisoned her husband 
in order to establish her authority, entered into an 
alliance with Adrian, bishop of Rome, and convoked 
the so-called Seventh General Council, held at Nice. 
By her influence, the decree sanctioning the use of 
images in religious worship was passed.* But this 
decree met with decided opposition at other synodical 
meetings. The bishops who refused to submit to the 
decree were punished, persecuted or excommunicated. 
It need scarcely be observed that the use of images in 
religious exercises is of pagan origin. This council 
invented what is called relative worship; that is, "that 
the honor rendered to the images is transmitted to the 
prototype ; and he who worships the figure, worships 
the substance of that which is represented by it. "f 
And although this council asserted, with the usual bold 
assumption and effrontery ever assumed by the Papal 
Church, that this institution was established by "the 
holy fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church, 
which from one end of the world to the other had 



*Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, vii., col. 899, Mcen II., sess. vii., 
action vi. Paris, 1671; and Surius Council, torn, iii., p. 150. Col. 
Agrip., 1507. 

f Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, vii., col. 556. Paris, 1671. 

(326) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 2> 2 7 

embraced the gospel," it has been shown in previous 
articles on images, that the doctrine of relative worshio, 
introduced into Christian worship at this period by the 
Second Council of Nice, was the identical practice the 
heathen adopted and defended, and was specially con- 
demned by the Fathers Arnobius and Origin of the 
third century, and Ambrose and Augustine of the 
fourth century.* 

The modern custom of consecration of images, and 
lighting tapers before them, is only another retrograde 
step toward heathenism and paganism, these being 
ancient practices, as we read in the apocryphal book of 
Baruch (cap. vi.) of the Babylonian idolaters. It was a 
mark of religious veneration to kiss images (i Kings 
xix. 1 8), as do the modern Romanists. Miracles, too, 
were attributed to images by the pagans, as now by the 
modern Romanists. The alleged modern examples are 
so numerous that they need not here be repeated. 

:;; Arnob , lib. v., c. ix. and c. xvii. Leipsic edit., 1816; Origen 
Cont. Cels., lib. vii., c. xliv* Paris, 1733. 



THE REAL PRESENCE. 



It will now be in order to give some account of the 
progress of the doctrine of the alleged real, or substan- 
tial, presence of our Lord in the sacred emblems. The 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or the celebration of 
the -" eucharist," was regarded as the most solemn act 
of the Church. Figurative and mystical language was 
applied to it, particularly by members of the Greek 
Church; as, for instance, when Chrysostom spoke of 
the recipients' mouths being made red with the blo^d. 
The elements themselves took the names of the things 
they represented: the cup of the blood; the bread of 
the body of Christ. Augustine, of the fifth century, 
gives us several examples of this, which- it is not 
necessary to reproduce here. While it is quite true 
that many of the early writers spoke of the elements as 
the body and blood of Christ, in terms which, when 
taken literally and detached from their context, might 
be construed as favoring the Romish doctrine ; yet such 
an interpretation becomes wholly impossible of accept- 
ance when we find these same Christian writers, in suc- 
cession, from the very earliest periods, speaking of the 
consecrated elements as similitudes, images and types. 

As extravagance of speech was highest among the 
Greeks, or in the Eastern Church, so some individuals 
among them, misled by these rhetorical phrases, began 
to teach the real substantial presence, but not as yet 
the transubstantiation of the elements. Such appeared 

(328) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 329 

to have been the doctrine of Anastatius, of Mr. Sinai 
(A. D. 680) and John, of Damascus (A. D. 740), who 
went still further. He den ed the bread and wine to be 
the types of the body and blood of Christ. The coun- 
cil held at Constantinople (A.D. 754), which condemned 
image worship, checked this rising heresy in the East. 
It maintained that "Christ chose no other shape or 
type under heaven to represent his incarnation but the 
sacrament, which he delivered to his ministers for a 
type and a most effectual commemoration thereof; 
commanding the substance of bread and wine to be 
offered," and this bread they affirmed to be "a true 
image of his natural flesh."* 

The Second Council of Nice (A. D. 787), which 
established the use of images, condemned the statement 
that the only true image of Christ was in the bread and 
wine, the type of the body and blood of Christ. They 
declared that Christ did not say, "Take, eat the 
image of my body," adding the bold assertion, that 
"nowhere did either our Lord, or his apostles, or the 
fathers, call the unbloody sacrifice offered up through 
the priest, an image, but they call it the body itself, 
and the blood itself, "f This shameful controversy con- 
tinued on down through the dark ages until finally tran- 
substantiation became a stereotyped dogma of the 
Church of Rome. 

In A. D. 795, Leo III. ordered incense to be used in 
the Latin Church in her services. J The use of incense 
in public worship was not only Jewish, but also a pagan 



*Concl. Nicen. II., art. vi., Labb. et Coss., torn, vii., cols. 448, 449. 
Paris, 1671; and Concl. Gen., torn. Hi. , p. 599. Romse, 1612. 
fin Bib. Pair., torn, iv., p. 442. Paris, 1589. 
JPolydore Vergil, b. v., c. viii., p. 109. London, 1551. 



330 THE REAL PRESENCE. 

custom. All the representations of heathen sacrifices 
on the ancient monuments have a boy in sacerdotal 
habits attending with an incense box, for the use of the 
officiating priests; and the same we see in the present 
day at all the popish altars. 

The more we examine the convocations and councils 
of men who meet and pass decrees, and pass resolutions, 
and legislate in open opposition to the law and author- 
ity of Jesus Christ, the more clearly do we perceive 
how the churches have been enslaved and Christians 
robbed of their personal liberties. 



ASSUMPTION OF TEMPORAL POWER. 



Before passing into the darkness of the ninth cen- 
tury, we must advert to one of the most important inno- 
vations in the Papacy — namely, the assumption of 
temporal power by the bishop of Rome. As yet the 
bishop of Rome held no temporal rule. It was not 
until past the middle of the eighth century that a tem- 
poral was added to his spiritual jurisdiction. This was 
effected by a bargain similar to that struck with Phocas. 

Previous to the assumption of the spiritual power by 
the bishop of Rome, the protests of Bishops Pelagius 
and Gregory have afforded us undeniable proofs that 
previous to the seventh century no single bishop, either 
of the Roman or Greek Church, assumed a supreme 
spiritual power over the whole Church ; so, also, we 
have testimony of the same character furnished to us by 
n bishop of Rome, that previous to the fifth century the 
assumption of temporal power by the bishop of Rome 
was directly repudiated by Pope Gelasius. This Pope 
wrote, or is believed to have written, a treatise entitled 
De Anathematis Vinculo, ' ' on the bond or tie of the 
anathema." It is one of four tracts composed by him 
at different times, which are to be found under his name 
in all the orthodox editions of the councils, such as 
Labbeus and Manse's editions, that of Binius and others. 
It seems to have been written to explain an expression 
pronounced by his predecessors against one Acacius, to 
the effect that he never should, nor ever could, be 

(33i) 



332 ASSUMPTION OF TEMPORAL POWER. 

absolved from an anathema pronounced against him. 
Though this part (says Collette) is much confused, that 
which follows is as plain as it is important. Gelasius, in 
this tract, lays down a clear distinction as then existing 
between the temporal and the spiritual jurisdiction of 
bishops and emperors or kings. He states that anciently 
the royalty and priesthood were often united in one and 
the same person, among the Jews as well as the Gen- 
tiles; but that since the coming of Christ these two dig- 
nities, and the different powers that attend them, have 
been vested in different persons ; and from thence he 
concludes that neither ought to encroach on the other, 
but that the temporal power entire should be left to 
princes; it being no less foreign to the institution of 
Christ for a priest to usurp the functions of sovereignty, 
than it is for a sovereign to usurp those of the priest- 
hood. 

This is a very clear statement, and never could have 
been made by a bishop of Rome had he held the modern 
notions of the present possessor o^ the Papal See, who 
brazenly declares that the temporal is inseparable from 
and is necessary to the spiritual rule.* But it is not our 
province to reconcile Romish contradictions and incon- 
sistencies. We have seen that the spiritual supremacy 
owed its origin to a murderer: the temporal owes its 
origin to an usurper. 

Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, aspired to the 
throne of France, then occupied by Childeric III. He 
consulted Zachary, bishop of Rome, and desired to 
know if it were lawful to depose the then lawful ruler. 



*The original text is before us in Latin. Saero. Cone. Coll., torn, 
viii., cols. 93-04. Mansi (edit. Florent., 1762) ; and Binius Concl., 
torn, ii., par. i., p. 487. Colon, 1618. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 333 

Zachary wanted this daring soldier's help to protect 
himself from the Greeks and Lombards. The result 
was an unholy compact or an alliance between them. 
Childeric was deposed by Pepin, and the kingdom trans- 
ferred to the latter. The bishop of Rome formally 
recognized the -act. Stephen, the second successor to 
Zachary, went to France again to solicit Pepin's aid 
against the Lombards; and in 754 solemnly confirmed 
the decision of his predecessor, absolved Pepin from his 
oath of allegiance lo Childeric, and crowned him king in 
his stead. In return, by force of arms, Pepin handed 
over to the See of Rome the exarchate of Ravenna and 
other provinces.* Thus was the bishop of Rome now, 
for the first time, raised to the rank of a temporal 
prince. Gregory (A. D. 741), the predecessor of Zach- 
ary, had already offered to withdraw his allegiance from 
the Emperor and give it to Charles Martel, on condition 
that he would deliver the city from the Lombards. 
This scheme did not succeed ; but his successor, Zach- 
ary, carried out the negotiations with Pepin, as above 
stated. Charlemagne, the son of Pepin (A. D. 774), 
not only confirmed the grant made by his father, but 
added other Italian provinces to the See of Rome. In 
return for Charlemagne's donation, the bishop of Rome 
gave him the title of "The Most Christian King," and 
by his help made Charlemagne Emperor of all the West. 
"In 755 King Pepin confirmed to the Holy See, in 
the person of Stephen II., the exarchate of Ravenna, 
and part of the Romagna now wrested from it; and in 
774 Charlemagne confirmed his father's gift and added 
to it the provinces of Perugia and Spoleto, which a're 



*Fleury, Hist., liv., xliii.., An. 755, cap. xviii., pp. 382-383, torn. ix. 
Paris, 1703. 



334 ASSUMPTION OF TEMPORAL POWER. 

now sought to be revolutionized (and have been), that 
so a title of a thousand years' possession (which few, if 
any other, of European dynasties can pretend to,) may, 
by a stroke of the pen, or a slash of the sword, be can- 
celed or rent."* 

The bishop of Rome (for as yet he was not Pope) 
having attained to this high degree by fraud, a further 
fraud was next perpetrated by the appearance of the 
infamous and notorious forgeries known as the "Decre- 
tal Epistles'' of the early popes. These Decretals were 
put forward to confirm their spiritual and temporal 
power. Binius, archbishop of Cologne, who, in 1608, 
published a collection of councils, while endeavoring to 
sustain the genuineness of these Epistles, admitted that 
"most of these letters of the popes were written about 
the primacy of Peter ; the dominion of the Roman 
Church ; the ordination of bishops ; that priests are not 
to be injured, nor accused, nor deposed; and about 
appeals being made to the Apostolic See." These docu- 
ments were first published by Antgarius, bishop of 
Mentz, in France, about the year 836. They were 
never heard of before. These forgeries, for nearly 
seven hundred years, deceived the world, and produced 
the desired effect, f The frauds were exposed at the 
time of the Reformation, and are now admitted even by 
the Romanists to be forgeries. But the popes had the 
advantage of seven hundred years, during which period 

*Dr. Wiseman's London Pastoral for 1860. See Tablet for April 
21, 1860, p. 246, col. iv. The wily doctor uses the word "confirmed," 
whereas Pepin " gave," not " confirmed," these provinces to the bishop 
of Rome. Lower down he cails it a "gift." 

fFleury, Eccl. Hist., vol. ix., liv., 44, p. 500, et seq., Paris, 1703 ; 
and torn, ix., p. oQ, Paris, 1769, where the proofs of their being for- 
geries are set out. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 335 

their temporal and spiritual supremacy", founded on 
these forged documents, was firmly believed to be 
derived from the apostle Peter himself, and thus the 
belief became engrafted in the Roman hierarchy.' 1 " 

We enter the ninth century. We have already traced 
the rise and progress in the East of the alleged substan- 
tial presence of Christ in the bread and wine. It had 
now (A. D. 8 1 8) spread to the West. Paschase Rad- 
bert advanced the following doctrine: "That the body 
of Christ in the eucharist is the same body as that which 
was born of the Virgin, which suffered upon the cross, 
and which was raised from the grave "f This theory, 
hitherto unknown in the West, was immediately 
opposed. In 825 Rabanus, archbishop of Mentz, in 
his epistle to Heribald, specially condemned this new 
theory, as then lately introduced. These are his words: 

Lately, indeed, some individuals, not thinking rightly concerning 
the sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, have said u that very 
body and blood of the Lord which was born from the Virgin Mary, in 
which the Lord himself suffered upon the cross, and in which he rose 
again from the sepulchre, is the same as that which is received from 
the altar." In opposition to which error, as far as lay in our power, 
writing to the Abbot Egilus, we propounded what ought truly to be 
believed concerning the body itself. 

He then proceeded to give a spiritual interpretation 
deduced from Christ's words in the sixth chapter of 
John's Gospel, as being applied to the Lord's Supper. 
The theory then lately introduced by some individuals, 
and condemned by this archbishop, is exactly the same 
theory taught by the Church of Rome. The Trent 
Catechism informs us that the body contained in the 



*Neander's Church Hi;t., vol. vi., p. 1, etseq.; and Life and Times 
of Charlemagne ; Religious Tract Society. 

fPaschus, Radbert de Sacram. Euchar., cap. iii., p. 19. Colon, 1551. 



336 ASSUMPTION OF TEMPORAL POWER. 

sacrament is identical "with the true body of Christ, 
the same body which was born of the Virgin Mary, and 
sits at the right hand of the Father."* This teaching, 
as we have seen, was only introduced in the ninth cen- 
tury. The doctrine was considered so offensive and so 
novel, that this archbishop not only wrote to the Abbot 
Egilus, but also to Heribald, to whom he declares that 
the theory was only then recently introduced. The 
Western Church, however, now took the infection, 
and it created some excitement; so much so that the 
Emperor Charles was induced to take the opinion of 
Bertram, a monk of the abbey of Corbie. In rep'y to 
the Emperor's demand, he wrote a treatise on the body 
and blood of Christ, wherein he not only repudiated the 
idea advanced by Radbert, word for word, but also 
declared that "the bread and wine are the body and 
blood of Christ figuratively, "f 

According to the acknowledgment of Alexander of 
Hales (A. D. 845), who was styled from his skill, the 
"irrefragable doctor"' (A. D. 1230), confirm a ion was 
instituted as a sacrament in the Meldesium (Meaux) 
Council of this date. \ This was only a provincial coun 
cil. Confirmation was admitted by the Church of Rome 
authoritatively as a sacrament in 3547, at the seventh 
session of the Council of Trent; and yet the Word of 
God makes not the remotest reference to confirmation as 
a sacrament It is not even founded on tradition; it is 
purely an assumption without the semblance of author- 
ity. At a synod in Pavia (A. D. 850) the custom of 



•■Catech. Concl. Trent, p. 221. Donavan's Translation, Dublin, 1829. 
f Bertram, Presbyt. <le Corp. et Sanguin. Domin., pp. 180-222, 
Colon, 1551, or sec. lxxxix., Oxon, 1838. 

lAlex. Ales. op. omn., vol iv., p. 109. Venet, 1575. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 337 

priestly unction, especially in mortal sickness, was sanc- 
tioned, and was placed in the same rank with the other 
sacraments.* 

In 852 the Capitular of Hincmar (an eminent bishop 
of France) directed holy water to be sprinkled on the 
people, houses, cattle, and the food of men and beasts, f 

The Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary 
(855). has no warranty in any ancient document.^ Leo 
IV. now firmly established the festival, and added the 
octave, to invest it with greater dignity. || 

No doubt these medieval innovators reasoned as some 
of our modern innovators reason, that God "has left us 
to the exercise of our own judgment by not expressing 
his!" These modern speculators say that we have a 
right to speak as the Scriptures speak, but that the 
"silence of the Scriptures" allows us to express our 
own judgment! And look around on all sides and 
behold the fruits of this pernicious principle. Once 
adopt that rule of interpretation, and you are at once 
driven out to sea wiihout chart or compass. Once 
depart from God's revealed will, and you at once open 
the door to every whim and fancy of the human mind. 
At the very point where you depart from the Word of 
God, tradition, with all its expediencies, comes troop- 



*Neander's Church History, vol. vi., p. 146. London, 1852. 

fFleury's Eccl. Hist., lib. 44, p. 541, Paris, 1704 ; and in torn, x., 
p. 462, Paris, 1769. 

;j]The various spurious documents cited by Romanists to prove the 
antiquity of this festival are ably exposed by Dr. Tyler in his ''Wor- 
ship of the Virgin Mary," part ii., c. ii. London, 1851. 

||Fleury, Eccl. Hist., lib. xlix., p. 593, torn, x., Paris, 1704; and 
torn, x., p. 502, Paris, 1769. 

23 



TRADITION PLACED ON A LEVEL WITH 
DIVINE REVELATION. 



Down to A. D. 869 the Sacred Scriptures were 
accepted alone as authority in the Church. The Fourth 
Council of Constantinople (A. D. 869), by the first 
canon, first passed a decree recognizing tradition ; but 
it was not an oral tradition, as subsequently relied on by 
the Council of Trent, but tradition preserved in the 
records of the Church by the writings of a continual suc- 
cession of witnesses in the Church, capable, therefore, 
of proof; nor did this Council place this tradition on an 
equal footing with the Scriptures, as the Roman Catho- 
lic Council of Trent subsequently did, but as a "second- 
ary oracle " only. It was left for the Council of Trent, 
in 1546, to consummate the corruption by converting 
the written to an oral tradition, and placing the latter 
upon an equality with the Word of God. The decree in 
question is as follows : 

Therefore we profess to preserve and keep the rules which have 
been delivered lo the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, as well by 
the holy and most illustrious apostles, as by the universal as Avell as 
local councils of the orthodox, or even by any divinely speaking father 
and master of the Church ; governing by these both our own life and 
manners, and canonically decreeing that both the whole list of the 
priesthood, and also all who are counted under the name of Christian, 
are subjected to the pains and condemnations, and on the other hand, 
to the approbations and justifications, which have been set forth and 
defined by them. To hold the traditions which we have received, 

(338) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 339 

whether by word or by epistle of the saints who have shone heretofore, 
is the plain admonition of the great apostle Paul.*" 

Those traditions which were preserved, as we are 
told, by Protestants opposing Romanists, in the records 
of the Church by the writings of a continual succession 
of witnesses in the Church, and-which are called "oral 
tradition," would now be called "laws of expediency," 
"sanctified common sense," "the silence of the Scrip- 
tures," "the deductions of human reason," etc. In our 
own day, and among our own selves we have history 
repeating itself. Witness now, if you please, the tradi- 
tion legalized and recognized in our conventions and in 
our preachers' meetings. With many these traditions 
have become fixed lazv, and woe betide the man who 
daringly plumps himself against the decrees of these 
conventions and preachers' meetings. He who is faith- 
ful to the Society, and swears by the decrees of the 
Society, may be canonized in the calendar of society 
saints ; but if he refuses subjection to this yoke, he 
invokes the anathemas of the little popes. 

*Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, viii., cols. 1,126-1,127; Paris, 1671. 
The Latin of this canon is before us, but for our purpose it is not neces- 
sary to quote it. 



CANONIZATION OF SAINTS. 



Adrian III., bishop of Rome, was the first whG 
advised the canonization of saints (A. D. 884) ; but the 
authoritative confirmation by decree was of later date, 
under Alexander III. (A. D. 1160). The first act of 
canonization is supposed to have taken place in A. 
D. 933, under John XV. The fortunate person was 
Uldaric, bishop of Augsburg, who died about twenty 
years before.* Ferraris, f however, says it is not cer- 
tain who was the first that celebrated the canonization 
of a saint, and adds that many believed that it was by 
Leo III., A. D. 804. Neander, in his Church History, J 
notes this last-mentioned period as the proper date for 
ascertaining the authoritative introduction of invocation 
of saints, which was then recognized by the bull of Pope 
John XV. 

We have now come to the tenth century. In A. D. 
956, Octavian was made bishop at the age of eighteen, 
under the title of John XII. || We note this as being 
the first authentic instance of the adoption of a new 
name by the bishop of Rome. It then became, and is 
now, the custom of popes to change their names on the 
occasion of their election. Adrian VI. (A. D. 1522), a 



*Fleury, Eccl. Hist., torn, xii., p. 275. 
tPicard, torn, i., part ii., p. 143. Amsterdam, 1723. 
^Neander, "Church History," vol. vi., p. 144. London, 1852. 
|| "Ceremonies et Confumea Religieuses," etc., Picard, torn, i., part 
ii., p. 49, note b. Amsterdam, 1723. 

(340) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 341 

Dutchman, refused to follow this rule. According to 
Polydore Vergil, Sergius I. (A. D. 701) first ordained 
that the bishop of Rome might change his name on 
election, after the example of Christ, who changed 
Simon Barjonas to Peter. Vergil on this quaintly 
observes: "The special prerogative and privilege of the 
bishop of Rome is, that he may change his name if it 
may seem to him not very pleasant to his ears. If he 
be a malefactor, he may call his name Bonifacius ; if he 
be a coward, he may be called Leo ; a carter, Urbanus; 
and for a cruel man, Clemens ; if not innocent, Innocen- 
tius ; if ungodly, Pius." 



BAPTIZING BELLS.— ABSOLUTION. 



In A. D. 965, John XIII.* baptized the great bell of 
St. John Lateran in Rome, naming it after himself; 
thence arose the custom of baptizing bells. Bellarminef 
informs us that in these baptisms all the forms in baptiz- 
ing children were used — water, oil, salt, and godfathers 
and godmothers. The baptized bell is dedicated to 
some saint, under whom they hope to obtain their 
demands from God, and they teach that the sound 
drives away devils, etc. J In A. D. 790, by the Capitu- 
lar of Charlemagne, the baptism of bells with holy water 
was prohibited. || 

The modern form of absolution, "I absolve thee" the 
alleged essence of the sacrament, can not be traced to 
any authentic record previous to this date, A. D. 1000. 
The ancient form of absolution used in the Church of 
Rome was, " Almighty God have compassion on thee 
and put away thy sins" — a sort of a ministerial, but not 
a judicial act. § This was changed to the present form, 
"I absolve tliee" — a monstrous dogma, which places the 
pardonin.g power in the hands of a man instead of in the 
mediation of Jesus Christ: in the hands of a depraved 



*Picard, "Ceremonies et Contumes Religieuses," torn, i., part ii., 
p. 108, note g. 

fBellarmine, Disp. De Rome Pont., lib. iv., c. xiii. Prag, 1721. 

JIbid, vol. i., p. xix. Amsterdam, 1723. 

||Fleury's Eccl. Hist., torn, i., p. 520, Paris, 1769, and torn, x., p. 
573, Paris, 1703, and Harduin Concilia, torn, iv., p. 846, No. 18. 

$Confitentium Ceremonise Antiq., edit. Colon, Ann., 1530. 

(342) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 343 

priest instead of in the will of the Almighty. Thomas 
Aquinas, who flourished about the middle of the thir- 
teenth century, points out the time of this remarkable 
changre ; for he tells us that the authoritative form of 
absolution was found fault with by a learned man, his 
contemporary, asserting that thirty years were scarcely 
passed since the supplicatory form only, ''Almighty 
God give thee remission and forgiveness," was used by 
all.* The present authoritative form was first estab- 
lished in Eno-land, in 1268, when, at a council held in 
London under Cardinal Ottoboni, the Pope's legate, all 
confessors were enjoined to use it.f This is Rome, 
Mystic Babylon, the Mother of Harlots, tradition and 
assumption, without a particle of the authority of God's 
word. 

About the beginning of the eleventh century, church 
buildings were first consecrated by the sprinkling of holy 
water, in imitation of the pagan customs of using lustral 
water for the same purpose. 

According to Fleury, the "Little Office of the Vir- 
gin " was introduced about this time, J and was afterward 
confirmed by Urban II., in the Council of Clermont, A. 
D. 1095.H 

About this time also, the " eucharist " was changed 
into a so-called "sacrifice"; the ordination service was 
then also changed. Priests who were hitherto called to 
preach the gospel, were now ordained, according to the 
form prescribed in the Roman pontifical, for another 



" History of the Popes," vol. ii., p. 135. London, 1750. 
fCollier's Eecl. Hist., vol. i., p. 474. Folio edit. 
JEccl. Hist., torn, xiii., p. 105, Paris, 1767 ; and p. 621, Paris, 1726. 
||Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent. x. ; pt. ii., cap. iv., sec. iii. 



344 BAPTIZING BELLS.— ABSOLUTION. 

purpose, nairiely, to sacrifice. Here are the words: 
"Receive thou power to offer sacrifice to God, and to 
celebrate masses as well for the living as for the dead, in 
the name of the Lord." What hideous dogmas, in all 
ages, have been consecrated " in the name of the Lord " ! 
What recklessness and what impiety! 

In A D. 1003, John XIV. authoritatively allowed 
the Feast of All Souls, appointing it to be celebrated 
upon the morning after All Saints. This feast was insti- 
tuted by Odilon, abbot of Clugny, at the latter end of 
the previous century. It is a commemoration of the 
dead by all the people. This was an ancient pagan cus- 
tom. It was celebrated, according to Plutarch, in his 
Life of Romulus, in the month of February, called the 
month of expiation. Modern Romanists have changed 
the time to November. Polydore Vergil* said : "The 
custom of performing the service for one's departed 
friends was long since adopted, as Cicero shows in the 
first oration against Anthony. Thus actual service was 
done — that is to say, annual sacrifices were yearly 
offered up in honor of the dead. * * * And there 
is all the reason in the world to conclude that Odilon 
from this took the yearly celebration of the service for 
the dead." So we see that Romanism in this, as in so 
many other cases, is only the readoption of paganism — 
a fact which Romanists can not refute. 



*Book ix., c. x., edit. London, 1551. 



PENANCE. 



The Council of Worms, at this date (A. D.. 1022) 
first undertook to legalize the commutation of penance 
for money. Fleury, the Roman Catholic historian, 
thus refers to the words extracted from the Decretum 
of Burchard, bishop of Worms: " He that can not fast 
for one day on bread and water, shall sing fifty psalms 
on his knees in the church, and shall feed one poor man 
for that day, and for which period he shall take such 
nourishment as he likes except wine, flesh and grease. 
One hundred genuflexions shall be accepted instead of 
the fifty psalms, and the rich may redeem themselves 

FOR MONEY. "* 

Not the Romish Church only deals out salvation and 
honor for money. We know of a class of men (call them 
priests if you choose) who profess par excellence to rep- 
resent New Testament teaching, but who gauge a man's 
standing in church and in convention in proportion to 
the amount of money he hands over to the secretaries. 
And these life-directorships and life-memberships and 
annual memberships cover a multitude of sins — a thing 
which poor Christians can not enjoy, because they have 
no money. But if you have plenty of money, the 
priests of the conventions will give you a passport to 
heaven, provided you will "down with the dust." 
Other priests besides Romish priests have learned from 
Solomon that "money answereth all things," even at 
the expense of Christian virtue and Christian honor. 



*Flemy, Hist. EccL, torn, xii., p. 413, edit. Paris, 1769-1774, and 
p. 425, edit. Paris, 1722. (345) 



REDEMPTION OF PENANCES. 



We are now in the thick of the dark ages, A.D. 1055 
Victor II. was the first Pope who authorized what 
might be termed the redemption of penances. Hitherto 
canonical penances were relaxed by the bishop. It 
was now enacted that the penitent might buy off or 
redeem the penance by "pecuniary mulcts," or fines, 
under the softer expressions of alms or donations 
bestowed on the Church. Those who had no money, 
might redeem the same by acts of austerity, fastings, 
voluntary mortifications, etc., as above stated. Hence, 
the custom of whipping proceeded, and the subsequent 
establishment of an order of friars called the "Batusses," 
who, in their nightly processions, whipped and other- 
wise mortified themselves The priests of Bellona wore 
haircloth and inflicted stripes on their bodies. The 
priests of Baal also lacerated themselves. Polydore 
Vergil (lib. vii., c. vi.) tells us that the custom was 
derived from the pagan Egyptians and Romans. He 
says: ''Those whom you see in the public processions 
walk in order with their faces covered and their should- 
ers torn, which they scourge with whips, as becomes 
true penitents, have copied after the Romans, who, 
when they celebrated the feast called Lupercale, 
marched thus naked and masked through the streets 
with whips. And if we must go further to look for the 
origin of this verberation, I will affirm it to be derived 
from the Egyptians, who, as Herodotus tells us," etc. 
Paganism and Romanism thus go hand in hand. The 

(346) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 347 

Roman Breviary and Lives of the Saints are replete 
with the examples of the perpetration of this barbarous 
custom of self flagellation. And yet, in this, the latter 
part of the nineteenth century, two hundred million 
Roman Catholic subjects are under its baneful and 
superstitious influence ! 

At a council held in Rome, under Nicholas II. (A. D. 
1059), ^ was declared that the bread and wine are the 
very body and blood of Christ; and that Christ is sensi- 
bly felt, broken and torn by the teeth of the faithful.* 
This is not the precise doctrine of the modern " Holy 
Apostolic Church," nor was the council which presented 
the doctrine a general council. The above was the 
form of recantation which Rerengarius was, for the 
third time, compelled to sign. Fleury, nevertheless, 
informs us that though the majority of the council were 
against Berengarius, yet some of the members con- 
tended that the terms of Scripture were to be taken 
figuratively. f At the same council, under Nicholas II., 
it was declared that if any one should be elected bishop 
of Rome without the unanimous and canonical consent 
of the cardinals, and of the other clergy and laity, he 
should not be regarded as a Pope, but as an intruder.^ 
Polydore Vergil || says that the authority to choose the 
bishop of Rome belonged first to the Emperor of Con- 
stantinople and the deputy of Italy, till, about A. D. 
685, the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus empowered 
the cardinals and the people of Rome to elect him. It 

*Cor. Juris. Can., torn, i., p. 2,104, part iii., dist. ii., c. xlii. Paris, 
1612. 

fEccl. Hist., torn, xiii., p. 289. Paris, 1726; and pp. 367, 368. Paris, 
1769. 

|Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, ix., col. 1,099. Paris, 1671. 

||B. iv., c. vii., p. xcii. London, 1551. 



34$ REDEMPTION OF PENANCES. 

is quite certain that up to tne time of Leo VIII. , A. D. 

965, the election of the bishop of Rome was vested in 
the clergy and people.* It is now vested in the cardi- 
nals alone. 

Purgatory was now (A. D. 1070) being industriously 
advocated by the priests ; but prayers to deliver souls 
out of purgatory were first appointed by Odilon, abbot 
of Clugny, about the latter end of the previous century, 
by instituting a festival for that purpose, f Up to this 
date (A. D. 1073) the title of "Pope," or "Papa," 
father, was common to all bishops. Gregory VII., in 
a council at Rome, decreed that there should be but 
one Pope in the world, and that was to be himself. 
The title of Pope was from thenceforth assumed by 
the bishop of Rome exclusively among the Western 
bishops, though the Eastern bishops still continued to 
retain the title. From this date, however, the bishops 
of Rome only were properly called " Popes." 



*Platina, in Vit., Leo VIII., p. 154. Colonise, 1568. 
fThis was in A. D. 998. See Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, x., pt. 
ii., c. iv., s. ii. 



COMPULSORY CELIBACY. 



The compulsory celibacy of the clergy was now (A. 
D. 1074) enforced by this same Pope. The marriage 
of priests was not altogether forbidden till the time of 
Gregory VIII.* He deprived the clergy of their lawful 
wives, compelled them to take a vow of continency, 
and excommunicated the refractory. He held a coun- 
cil at Rome (A. D. 1074), on which occasion it was 
declared that married priests should not be permitted to 
celebrate mass, or to, discharge any of the superior 
offices of the altar, f. At the Council of Mayence, held 
the following year (A. D. 1075), the decree of Gregory 
was published, which enjoined the archbishop, under 
pain of deposition, to oblige the prelates and other 
clergy of the province to give up either their wives or 
their offices. The clergy present would not submit to 
this decree, and opposed the archbishop, who, fearing 
for his life, gave up the attempt and left the enforcement 
of the decree to Gregory himself. J 

The first (so-called) General Council of the Roman 
Church which authoritatively enjoined the celibacy of 
the clergy was the first Lateran Council (A. D. 1123), 
held under Calixtus II. II 



•■■Pol. Vergil, De tier. Invent., lib. v., c. iv., p. 45. London, 1551. 

fLabb. et Coss. Concl., torn, x., col. 313. Paris, 1G71. 

JLabb. et Coss. Concl., torn, x., col. 345. Paris, 1671. 

|| Ibid, torn, x., col. 891, can. iii. The Provincial Council of Augs- 
burg (Augustanum), A. I). 952, forbade the clergy, including bishops 
and sub-deacons, to marry, or to retain females in their houses. Ibid, 
torn. ix. ; col. 635. Paris, 1671. 

(349) 



350 COMPULSORY CELIBACY. 

On the subject of priestly celibacy, the opinion of 
yEneas Sylvius, who afterward (A. D. 1458) became 
Pope, under the name of Pius II., is noteworthy. "Per- 
haps [he said] it were not the worse that many priests 
were married, for by that means many might be saved 
in married priesthood which now in celibate priesthood 
are damned."* Our readers will not be surprised to 
know that this work long since was placed in the 
index of prohibited books,! which means books that 
dare not be read. This same JEneas Sylvius said that, 
"As marriage, for weighty reasons, was taken from 
the priests, so, upon more weighty considerations, it 
appears that it ought to be restored. "J " Take away," 
said St. Bernard, " from the Church (i.e., the priesthood) 
honorable matrimony, and do you not fill it with 
keepers of concubines?" etc. || Polydore Vergil§ cited 
the last quotation from /Eneas Sylvius, in his book, 
il De Inventionibus Rcrum," and he proved that the mar- 
riage of priests was not contrary to the law of God, that 
the custom continued for a long period in the Church, 
and added: "Furthermore, whilst the priests did beget 
lawful sons, the Church flourished with a happy 
offspring of men ; then your popes were most holy, 

:; vEneas Sylvius, " Commentarii de gestis Basiliensis Concilii," lib' 
ii., opera. Basil, 1571. 

fSee Index, lib. prohib. Madrid, 1007, p. 30. 

jPlatin. in Vit. Pii. II., p. 328. Colon, 1611. 

||Bened., Serm. Ixvi., in Cantica, post, irnit. vol. ii., p. i., p. 555. 
Paris, 1839. N. B.— This sermon is put among the "opera dubia": 
it is quoted as a grave assertion proved by results to be true. We have 
the Latin text before us. 

\ Published in 1497, and subsequently in 1528. Parisiis ex officina, 
Koberti Stephani. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 351 

your bishops most innocent, and your priests and dea- 
cons most honest and chaste" (De Invent. Rerum, lib 
v., c. iv. , pp. 86, 87, Ibid, c ix., edit, as above). He 
gave, in the same place, also, the reverse of the picture: 
"This I will affirm, that this enforced chastity is so 
far from surpassing conjugal chastity, that even the 
guilt of no crime ever brought greater disgrace to the 
holy order, greater danger to religion, or greater grief 
to all men, than the stain of the clergy's lust. Where- 
fore, it would, perhaps, be the interest as well of Chris- 
tianity as of the holy order, that at least the right of 
public marriage were restored to the clergy, which they 
might rather chastely pursue without infamy, than defile 
themselves by such fearful lusts." As Rome can not 
endure to hear the truth, the compilers of the Belgium 
and other Expurgatory Indices, did, some years ago, 
order this fourth chapter of the fifth book of Polydore 
Vergil's work, for several consecutive pages, to be 
expunged. 

There is a curious document extant, a letter written 
by Udalric, or Ulrick, bishop of Augusta (A. D. 870), 
to Pope Nicholas I. A warm dispute had arisen 
between the bishop and the Pope on the subject of 
priestly marriages, the Pope having censured Odo, the 
archbishop of Vienna, for permitting one of his sub- 
deacons to marry. Ulrick reminded the Pope that 
Gregory the Great, by a decree, had deprived priests 
of their wives; shortly after, some fishermen, instead of 
making a take offish, to jk six thousand heads of infants 
which had been drowned in the ponds! When the 
Pope heard of the scandal, the result of his decree, he 
immediately recalled it, and did acts of penance for the 



352 COMPULSORY CELIBACY. 

occasion he had given of so many deaths.* That the 
prohibition led to great and unmentionable scandals, no 
one doubts who has intelligently read history. Even 
conscientious Catholics condemn the prohibition. 

Popery rose to its zenith in the eleventh century. It 
culminated in Gregory VII., surnamed Hildebrand. 
He is regarded as the greatest man that ever sat upon 
the Papal throne./ This period is further remarkable 
for the fact that now, for the first time, the Pope took 
upon himself to anathematize and depose an emperor. 
Gregory delivered this order of deposition in presence 
of his council and in the form of a solemn address to 
the apostle Peter. It was hurled against the Emperor 
Henry IV. Fleury says that this was the first time 
that a Pope had undertaken to declare such a sentence, 
and the whole empire was thrown into astonishment 
and indignation.! A. D 1090, chaplets and paternos- 
ters were, with the "Office and Hours of our Lady," 
invented by Peter the Hermit ;| but the former were 
put in general practice at the recommendation of 
Dominic (A. D. 1230), and he therefore passed as the 
author of this species of devotion. 

It may be worth recording here, in passing, that at 
the Council of Clermont, held in November of this year 
(1095), by Pope Urban II., at the head of thirteen 
archbishops and two hundred and fifty bishops and 
abbots, by the twenty-eighth canon it was directed that 



*Epist. Udalrici. apud. Gerhard, Loc. Theolog. de Minist. Eccles.. 
lect. cccxxxix., torn, vi., p. 54S, 4to. Jenae, 1619. The Latin text is 
before us, from which the above is quoted. 

fEccl. Hist., torn, xiii., pp. 295, 301. Paris, 1739. 

JPolydore Vergil, b. v., c. vii., p. 107. London, 1551. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 353 

all who communicated should receive the body and 
blood of Christ under both kinds, unless there be 
necessity to the contrary.* 

*Labb. et Coss. Concl. Gen., torn, x., col. 506, can. 28. Paris, 1671. 



MONASTICISM. 



In A. D. 1098, Robert, abbot of Moleme, bishop of 
Burgundy, founded a new order of monks called Cister- 
cians, so called from the place in which he located him- 
self, Citeaux, or Cistercium, within the bishopric of 
Chalon, not far from Dijou, in France. Bruno, an 
ecclesiastic of Cologne, and master of the cathedral 
school at Rheims in 1084, settled down at Chartreux 
(Cartusium), near Grenoble, and there founded the 
order of Carthusian monks.* In 1 185 a Greek monk 
(a priest, Johannes Phocus) visited Mt. Carmel, in Pales- 
tine, where he found the ruins of an old monastery, and 
where he also found an old priest of Calabria, one 
Berthold, who had, in consequence of a vision, erected 
on this spot a tower and small chapel, which he occu 
pied, with about ten companions Hence arose the 
order of the Carmelite monks, f 

During all these dark ages where was the Church 
of Christ which his apostles established? It had 
thoroughly apostatized Usurpers of authority had 
destroyed it. A corrupt priesthood had sold Jesus 
Christ for less than thirty pieces, of silver. Bishops 
owned everything and controlled everything. The 
mass of the people were vassals in subjection to spirit 
ual despots. The people were shrouded in dense 

*Neander's Church Hist., vol. vii., p. 107. London, 1852. 
flbid, vol. vii., p. 369. (354) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 355 

ignorance. While lordly bishops lived in splendor and 
luxury, and fared sumptuously every day, the mass 
of the people lived in squalid poverty and eked out 
a miserable existence. Ecclesiastics, then as now, 
sought after place and power, and the saving of souls 
in most instances was a sham and a pretense. Tradition 
usurped the place of God's word, and superstition was 
substituted for piety and godliness. 

The history of the Primitive Church is not in the 
record of the Dark Ages — in the literature of mediaeval 
times. The history of the Apostolic Church is found 
in the New Testament. Practically little was known of 
the Church of Christ during a period of twelve hundred 
and sixty years, the prophetical years of the great apos- 
tasy. The Church was supplanted by the introduction 
of countless innovations. The image of Jesus Christ in 
the Church was well nigh obliterated. A vile priest- 
hood had usurped the place of King David's Greater 
Son. Tradition was sacrilegiously substituted for the 
Word of God. Ordinances, of which the apostles were 
absolutely ignorant, were invented by a wily and uncon- 
scionable priesthood, and made binding upon the con- 
sciences of the ignorant and impressible people, under 
heavy and most unreasonable penalties. 

We have now come to A. D. 1 123, where we find 
the marriage of the presbyters, deacons and sub deacons 
prohibited by the twenty-first canon of the First Coun- 
cil of Lateran. The following is the canon in ques- 
tion: 

We entirely forbid the presbyters, deacons and sub-deacons, and 
monks, to contract marriages ; and we judge that marriages contracted 



356 MONASTICISM. 

by these sort of persons ought to be annulled, and the persons brought 
to repentance, according to the decision of the said canons.* 

A similar canon was passed by the Second Lateran 
Council, A. D. 1139, canons vi. and vii.j 

*Babb. et Coss. Concl., torn, x., col. 899. Paris, 1671. 
flbid, torn, x., cols. 1,003-1,004. 



THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 



In A. D. i i 30, Hugo de Victore, a Parisian monk, 
and Peter Lombard, bishop of Paris (1140), first asserted 
or defined the sacraments to be seven, but this was not 
defined to be the # doctrine of the Church. The deter- 
minate number of "Seven Sacraments" was mentioned 
for the first time in the instructions given to Otto, of 
Bamberg, for persons newly baptized (A. D. 1124).* 

The festival of the Immaculate Conception of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary was introduced at Lyons about 
this time (1140); but was opposed by Bernard, as a 
novelty without the sanction of Scripture or of reason. f 
Bernard is a canonized saint of the Roman Church, and 
is accounted as the last of the so-called Fathers. His 
opinion on doctrinal questions is greatly esteemed by 
Romanists of the present day. When Bernard heard of 
this new festival, he wrote an epistle of protest to the 
church of Lyons, wherein he said: "We can never 
enough wonder that some of you could have the bold- 
ness to introduce a feast which the Church has not the 
least knowledge of, which is neither supported by 
reason nor backed by any tradition." He asserted that 
the feast was founded on an "alleged revelation, which 
is destitute of adequate authority," and inquired, "How 
can it be maintained that a conception which proceeds, 
not from the Holy Ghost, but rather from sin, can be 



*Neander's Church Hist., vol. vii., p. 465. London, 1852. 
fFleury, xiv., p. 527, Paris, 1769, and p. 560, Paris, 1727. 

(357) 



35^ THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 

holy? or how could they conjure up a holy day on 
account of a thing that is not holy in itself?" And he 
added that this feast ' ' either honors sin or authorizes a 
false holiness."* It is difficult to conceive on what 
ground the Church of Rome, after such a declaration as 
the above, could attempt to establish the "immaculate 
conception" as a credible- doctrine ; but, as we shall see, 
it was not until the fifteenth century that the dogma 
was revived and made a prominent feature of Romish 
theology. 

It was Peter Lombard who first determined the three 
parts of penance, viz.: contrition, confession and satis- 
faction, t 

Gratian's collections of ecclesiastical decrees, canons, 
etc., were allowed and authorized by Pope Eugene III. 
(A D. 1 151), who commanded them to be studied in 
the universities and practiced in the spiritual courts. 
This is the origin of what is called the " Canon Law/' 
Gratian, who arranged this new collection of ecclesias- 
tical laws at Bologna, was a Benedictine, or, according 
to another account, a Camaldulensian monk. J Gratian's 
doctrine, as to the authority of this law, was this: 
"The Holy Roman Church gives authority to the 
canons ; but she is not bound by the canons, nor does 
she submit herself to them. As Jesus Christ, who made 
the law, accomplished the law to sanctify it to himself, 
and, afterward, in order to show that he was its master, 
dispensed with it and freed his apostles from its bond- 



*S. Bernard, epist, 174, Oper., torn, i., pp. 390-391. Paris, 1839. 
f " Compnnctio cordis, eonfesseoris, satisfactio operis," Neander's 
Church History, vol. vii., p. 483. London, 1852. 
JXeander's Church History, vol. vii., p. 282. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 359 

age." The historian Fleury records these extravagant 
claims to demonstrate their falsity.* 

In A. D. 1 1 60, Alexander III. decreed the canoniza- 
tion of saints, and ordered that none should from that 
date be acknowledged a saint unless declared to be such 
by a Pope. Says Polydore Vergil : 

The fashion to deify men that had done any benefits to the common- 
wealth is one of the most ancient usages that I read of. For antiquity, 
even from the beginning, v as accustomed to make gods of their kings, 
which, either by abund?".ce of benefits, or notable qualities of prowess, 
had won the hearts of ne commons. And especially the Romans did 
that with great por , and circumstance, and with many observances. 
Of them our bis' ops learned, as by pattern, the rite of canonizing 
saints; and the yearly sacrifices that Gregory and Felix appointed 
concerned nothing else but to declare that those martyrs were saints, 
and of the household of God. Last of all. Alexander III. ordained 
that no such divine solemnities should be given to any man openly 
without he were canonized and admitted to be a saint by the bishop of 
Rome in his bull ; because no man should himself choose any private 
saint, or commit any peculiar idolatry.! 

Pagans were not allowed to offer up their prayers but 

to such as the senate, by their suffrage, had placed 

among the gods. Tertullian, in the thirteenth chapter 

of his Apology, referring to these heathen deities, said : 

The condition of each of our gods depends upon the approbation of 
the senate ; those are not gods whom men have not decreed to be. J 

Thus far we have discovered that Romanism is com- 
pounded of proportionate parts of Judaism, paganism and 
Christianity; paganism predominating. It is worthy of 

*J om. xv., p. 49, Paris, 17G9. Here it is made evident to the most 
casual observer, that all the arts of casuistry and sophistry and falla- 
cious reasoning were resorted to by which to deceive and enslave the 
ignorant masses. 

fB. vi., c. vi., p. 122. London, 1551. 

JTertullian, " Apoligeticus Adversus Gentes," c. xiii., vol. v. ; p. 
38, edit. Halse Madg., 1783. 



360 THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS. 

remark here, that, in 1165, Charlemagne was canonized 
by the anti-pope Pascal III., and though this canoniza- 
tion was made by a usurper, an anti-pope, the act has 
never been repudiated, and his name is still found in 
many calendars.* The same Pope, Alexander III., is 
said to be the first person who issued "indulgences" 
In A. D. 1 182-3, an important innovation took place 
in the election of the Pope (Lucius III.). Hitherto the 
clergy and people enjoyed a voice in the election ; but 
now. by virtue of a decree of the Third Lateran Council 
(A. D. 1179), un der Alexandei III., the election was 
made by the cardinals alone, f It was determined that 
the individual chosen by two-thirds of the cardinals 
should be the lawful Pope. J 

*FJeury, torn, xv., p. 129, Paris, 17G9, and p. 219, Paris, 1719. 
The text in the French language is before us. 

fLabb. et Cuss. Concl., torn, viii., col. 1,526, Paris, 1671. Fleury, 
vol. xv., p. 437, Paris, 1769. Mosheim's EccJ. Hist., cent, xi., pt. ii., 
p. 226, vol. ii., London, 1768. 

tXeauder's Church History, vol. vii., p. 233. London, 1852. 



AURICULAR CONFESSION. 



Auricular Confession was now (A. D. 12 15), by 
the Fourth Lateran Council, first authoritatively required 
of all persons of years of discretion, under pain of mor- 
tal sin.* Confession was to be made at least once a 
year. Fleury says: "This is the first canon that I 
know of which has commanded general confession. "7 

We have already noted, under date of A. D. 329, the 
first introduction of secret or private confession to a 
priest, and the suppression of the custom, and its subse- 
quent reintroduction A. D. 763. Finally we see the 
practice converted into a doctrine of the Papal Church. 
This was another reintroduction into the apostate Church 
of the heathen custom, and in this she followed out 
faithfully the Babylonian system, which required a 
secret confession to the pagan priest, according to a 
prescribed form, of all who were admitted to the "Mys- 
teries," and until such confession had been made, no 
complete initiation could take place. J Eusebe Salverf i|| 
refers to this confession as observed in Greece, in rites 



*'Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, xi., pt. i. Concl. Lat. IV., Decret., 
•ols. 171-173, Paris, 1671. 

fFleury's Eccl. Hist., torn, xvi., p. 375. Paris, 1769. 

JSee a very remarkable book, "The Two Babylons ; or, The Papal 
Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife," by 
Alexander Hislop. London and Edinburgh, 18(52, Third Edition, p. 
12. 

l|Des Sciences Occultes, cap. xxvi., p. 428. Paris, 1856. 

(36i) 



362 AURICULAR CONFESSION. 

that can clearly be traced to Babylonian origin. He 

says : 

All the Greeks, from Delphi to Thermophylse, were initiated in the 
mysteries of the Temple of Delphi. Their silence in regard to every- 
thing they were commanded to keep secret, was secured both by the 
fear of the penalties threatened to a perjured revelation, and by the 
general confession exacted of the aspirants after initiation — a confes- 
sion which caused them greater dread of the indiscretion of the priest, 
than gave him reason to fear their indiscretion. 

Potter, in his "Greek Antiquities,"'- refers to this 
confession in his account of the Eleusinian Mysteries, 
though, from fear of offending, he clothes under the words 
" et cetera " the various subjects exacted from the peni- 
tent or postulant in the confessional. Thus modern 
Romanism vies with ancient paganism even in the 
obscenity which it suggests, and which is equally char- 
acteristic of this modern spiritual despotism. 



*Potter, vol. i., " Eleasinea," p. 350. Oxford, 1G97. 



DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 



The Council of Trent, at the twenty- second session 
(A. D. 12 1 5), declared that "although the mass do 
contain in it great instruction for the people, yet it doth 
not seem expedient to the fathers of the Council that it 
should be everywhere celebrated in the vulgar tongue."* 
And they proceeded to decree that ' ' whosoever shall 
say that the mass ought to be celebrated in the vulgar 
tongue only, let him be accursed, "f 

Who are these "fathers of the council" anyhow? 
And these cardinals, who set themselves up in open 
opposition to the apostles of Jesus Christ? And these 
councils, who, taking advantage of the "silence of the 
Scriptures," and also presuming on the ignorance of the 
uneducated herd of humanity, essay to build up a hier- 
archy without the least authority from the great Head 
of the Church! Who are these men, in every age, who 
have no respect for the Word of God, no reverence for 
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Who are these 
worms of the dust, clothed with a little brief authority, 
who place tradition above the Bible, and popes above 
apostles, and "the Church " above Jesus Christ? Surely 
we "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the 
darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high 
places." Every effort is made by the great adversary 

*Concl. Trid., sess. xxii., c. 8, p. 156. Paris, 1832. 
flbid, can. 9, de sacrificio Mirsse, i>. 150. Paris, 1832. 

(363) 



364 DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 

of the soul to nullify the Word of God and to render it 
of no effect. Even many who affect to love the revealed 
truth, modify the Word of God to suit the times, invest 
the gospel with meritricious ornaments in order to 
please the people, and sell their birthrights for a mess 
of pottage— for worldly applause and popular favor. 
The fear of God is exchanged for the pleasures of sin, 
and the treasures of the world are esteemed greater 
riches than the reproaches for Christ. 

We have stated that the Council of Trent, at the 
twenty-second session, declared that "although the 
mass do contain in it great instruction for the people, 
yet it doth not seem expedient. to the fathers of the 
Council that it should be everywhere celebrated in the 
vulgar tongue." And they proceeded to decree that 
• ' whosoever shall say that the mass ought to be cele- 
brated in the vulgar tongue only, let him be accursed." 

When, how and why this delusive dogma was intro- 
duced, it is difficult to say; but this is the first canon 
on record which, so far from making the use of the 
vulgar tongue compulsory, anathematizes those who 
should declare that the service should be performed in 
the language known to the people. It is clear to be 
seen that the decree of Trent is directly contrary to the 
previous canon passed at the Fourth Lateran Council in 
A. D. 12 15; and which council is esteemed among 
Romanists as a general council. The words of the 
ninth canon are as follows: 

Because in most parts there are within the same state or diocese peo- 
ple of different languages mixed together, having under one faith 
various rites and customs: we distinctly charge that the bishops of 
these states or dioceses provide proper persons to celebrate the divine 
offices, and administer the sacraments of the Church according to the 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 365 

differences of rites and languages, instructing them both by word and 
by example* 

Here, then, is a decree of a reputed general council, 
in a most distinct and emphatic manner directing the 
sacred offices and sacraments of the Church to be 
administered in the language understood by the people. 
It may be added that the Pope, in his own decretals, 
publicly declared to the same effect in these words: 

We command that the bishops of such cities and dioceses where 
nations are mingled together, provide meet men to minister the holy 
service according to the diversities of their manners and languages. f 

And Cassander certified that the prayers, and espe- 
cially the words of consecration, were so read by the 
ancient Christians that all the people might understand. J 

That modern Romanists have changed the ancient 
custom is positively certain. So little do the mass of 
the Pope's subjects understand the Latin service as it 
proceeds, that the people not unfrequently read other 
prayers while the regular service is proceeding, and this 
is permitted, if not encouraged, by the priests. Though 
the real corporeal presence of our Lord in the "sacra- 
ment" was insisted upon as a matter of fact, it was not 
until the Fourth Lateran Council, under Innocent III., 
that the bread was declared to be transubstantiated into 
the body, and the wine into the blood of Christ ; and 
thus the speculative idea of transubstantiation became, 
for the first time, an article of faith by decree of a gen- 
eral council ; or, as Neander expresses it, the dogma 



*Labb. et Coss. Conch, torn, xi., p. 161. Paris, 1671. 
fDecret. Greg., lib. 3, tit. 31, de offic. Jud. Ord., c. 14. See 
Cassander Liturg., p. 87. Paris, 1610. 
JCassand. Liturg., c. 28, p. 17. Colon, 1558. 



$66 DECREES OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 

was "definitely settled by the Church at the Lateran 
Council, 1215."* 

The canon reads as follows: 

But there is one universal church of the faithful, out of which no 
one at all is saved ; in which Jesus Christ himself is at once priest and 
sacrifice: whose body and blood in the sacrament of the altar are 
truly contained under the species of bread and wine, which, through 
the divine power, are transubstantiated — the bread into the body, and 
the wine into the blood, that, for the fulfillment of the mystery of 
unity, we may receive of his that which he received of ours.f 

In pursuance of this decree, it was ordered that all 
churches should be furnished with a cabinet or cup- 
board, in which to keep the consecrated host not used ; 
hence the use of " pyxes " began. Hitherto the surplus 
bread and wine were either given away or burned. The 
"host" is supposed to be "very God." "We com- 
mand [said Innocent] that in all churches the eucharist 
be kept under lock and key, that it may not be touched 
by sacrilegious hands." Arnobius, a Christian writer 
of the third century, ridiculed the pagans for locking 
up their gods for a similar reason. " Why keep them 
locked up ? Is it for fear thieves should take them 
away by night ? If you are assured they are gods, 
leave to them the care of keeping themselves ; leave 
their temples always open. "J 

*Neander's Church Hist., vol. vii., p. 466. London, 1852. 

fLabb. Concl., torn, xi., p. 143. Paris, 1671. 

JArnob. Notitia Literaria, lib. vi., vol. i. Edit. Lips., 1816. 



ELEVATION OF THE HOST. 



In A. D. 1217, Honorius III. instituted the elevation 
and adoration of the host (Sacerdos quilibet frequenter 
doceat plebem suam ut cum in celebiatione missarium 
elevatur hostia salutaris quilibet reverenter inclinet. See 
Raynaldus ad. an. 12 19). These words are in Honorius' 
epistle to the Latin bishops of the patriarchate of 
Antioch, A. D. 12 18. Fleury expressly states that the 
custom of e'evating the host before the consecration of 
the chalice, was not in use until the beginning of this 
century.* The early Christian writers repeatedly and 
most fully describe the way and manner of receiving 
the bread and wine, but we find no mention whatever 
of the elevation and adoration of the host. Further: 
"From the oldest liturgies, and the eucharistic forms 
in them, it appears that there was no such adoration 
given to the sacrament till of late, for in none of them 
is there any such mention, either by the priest or by 
the people, as in the Roman missal or ritual, nor any 
such forms of prayer added to it, as in their breviary." 

Cassander, a learned Roman Catholic writer, who 
died A. D. T566,t has collected together most of the 
old liturgies, and endeavors, as fir as he can, to show 
their agreement with that of the Roman Church ; but 
neither in the old Greek, nor in the old Latin works, is 



*Fleury, Eccl. Hist., vol. xv., liv., 74, p. 603. Paris, 1719; and 
torn, xv., p. 5:^0. Paris, 1769. 

tCassandri Liturgie, oper, p. 10, etc. Paris, 1616. 

(367) 



368 ELEVATION OF THE HOST. 

there any instance to be produced of the priests or of 
the people adoring the sacrament as soon as the priest 
had consecrated it. Notwithstanding the elevation and 
adoration being one of the most prominent features of 
the modern Roman service, this last was added or 
brought into the Roman Liturgy after the doctrine of 
transubstantiation was established in that Chinch, which 
has produced a consequent alteration, not only in their 
liturgy, but even their religion in good part, and made 
a new sort, of worship, unknown, not only in the first 
and best times of the Church, but for above a thousand 
years after Christ.* It should be noted, in this con- 
nection, that Cardinal Guido seems not to have contem- 
plated an adoration of the host, but that on the eleva 
tion the people should pray for pardon. f 

The ritualists Bona, Merati, Benedict XIV., Le Brun, 
etal.y acknowledge that there is no trace of the custom 
of the elevation of the host before the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries, in the West. J The elevation of the 
host appears to have been first introduced into the 
diocese of Paris about A. D. 1200, by Odo de Sulli, 
bishop of Paris; || and even so late as A. D. 1536 the 
Synod of Cologne explained that the people should, on 
the elevation of the host, remember the Lord's death 
and return thanks with minds raised to heaven. § The 



*See Giboon's Preservative Against Popery, new edit., p. 141, vol. 
x., London, 1848, and where the places alleged by Romanists out o: 
the early Christian writers in support of the custom are examined ?.nd 
explained. 

fRaynaldus an, 1203. 

JSce* Palmer's Treatise of the Church of Christ, vol. i., p. 240. 
London, 1842. 

||Harduini Concilia, torn, xi., p. 1,945. 

|Synod, Colon, an. 1,536, pars, ii., can. 14, Lab. torn., xiv. Paris, 
1671. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 369 

veneration or adoration of the host itself was not 
actually enjoined until 155 1, by the sixth canon of the 
thirteenth session of the Council of Trent. The fifth 
chapter declares that there is no room for doubting that 
all the faithful of Christ, "according to the custom ever 
received in the Catholic Church, exhibit in veneration 
the worship of Latvia, which is the supreme worship 
due to God, to the sacrament." And the sixth canon 
anathematizes those who deny that the eucharist "is 
not to be proposed publicly to the people to be wor- 
shiped." Latvia, the highest kind of worship, or that 
paid to God : distinguished by the Roman Catholics 
from Dulia, or the inferior worship paid to saints. 

The custom of worshiping or praying before the 
elevated host, as before explained, was easily converted 
into an actual worship of the elements as Christ, but no 
fixed date can be assigned to the transition. That the 
elements themselves, however, were worshiped before 
the passing of this canon, is certainly evident by unmis- 
takable facts. Fisher, the Romish bishop of Roches- 
ter, A. D. 1504, said that if there was nothing more in 
the eucharist but bread, then the whole Church for 
sixteen centuries had committed idolatry, for during all 
this time people must have been worshiping the creature 
in place of the Creator.* 

We can not, however, trace any record of the fact 
that the host was worshiped by the people, under the 
supposition of Christ's presence therein, before the time 
of Durand, bishop of Mende, who mentioned it A. D. 
I286.f John Daille, a faithful and diligent searcher of 



*Fisher, Roffeus, cont., QEcolump. oper., p. 760. Wirceburg, 1597. 

fSee his Rationale Divinorum Officium IV., 41. 

25 



370 ELEVATION OF THE HOST. 

antiquity, says that he could not find "among the 
interpreters of ecclesiastical offices in the Latin Church, 
the mention of any sort of elevation before the eleventh 
century.* 



•Da'lseua de Relig. Cult. Object., lib. 2, c. 5. Gen., 1664. 



BIBLE FORBIDDEN TO THE LAITY. 



The Bible was now (A. D. 1229), for the first time, 
forbidden to the "laity""" by the Council of Toulouse, 
The decree was as follows: "We forbid also the per- 
mitting of the laity to have the books of the Old and 
New Testaments, unless any should wish, from a feeling 
of devotion, to have a psalter or breviary for divine 
service. But we most strictly forbid them to have the 
above-mentioned books in the vulgar tongue, "f This 
council was attended by the legate of the bishop of 
Rome, three archbishops, and several bishops and other 
dignitaries. J Gregory IX. (A. D. 1230) added the 
little bell, to inform the people when to kneel down to 
adore the host. 

We are informed by Alberic, in his Chronicon ad Ann., that the 
Cistercian abbot, Guido, whom the p ope had created a cardinal and 
dispatched as his legate to Cologne, first introduced this practice at 
the elevati m of the host in the mass, on a signal given by a bell, for 
the people to prostrate themselves and remain in that posture until the 
benediction of the eup.|| 

It appears, however, that William, bishop of Paris, 
about A. D. 1220, also ordered a bell to be rung at the 
elevation, that the people might be excited to pray, but 
not to worship the host. § 

-Tom. xvi., p. 633. 

tLabb. et Coss. Concl., torn, xi., part i., col. 425, Concl. Tolasanum, 
can. xiv. Paris, 1671. The Latin text is before us. 

JSee Massy 's "Secret History of Romanism," pp. 72, 73. London, 
1853. 

||Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, xii., pt. ii., c. iv., s. ii., p. 423, note 2. 
Edit. London, 1852. 

gBini. Concilia., torn, vii., pars, i., p. 536. Paris, 1636. 

(370 



RED HATS, SCARLET CLOAKS, CORPUS 
CHRIST!. 



We have now descended into the darkest portion of 
the Dark Ages, where the Apostolic Church has entirely 
lost its identity, and where it seems almost impossible 
to trice one feature of the spiritual image of Jesus 
Christ. The Son of God and the apostles have been 
jostled to one side by the encroachments of a daring 
and corrupt priesthood, while mysticism and supersti- 
tion of the most degraded types have supplanted the 
plain lessons of the Holy Scriptures. Ignorance of the 
densest kind stalks abroad, the public mind is beclouded 
with visions and dreams, fleecy and nebulistic, and the 
priest-ridden people are fed upon the vagaries of dis- 
torted imaginations. 

In A. D. 1237, the anthem Salve Regina (Hail, O 
Queen, i. e., the Virgin Mary) was introduced by 
request of the preaching friars.* 

In 1238 the patriarch of Antioch excommunicated 
Gregory IX. and the whole Roman Church, as being 
stained with a constant course of simony, usury, and all 
kinds of crimes, f 

In 1245 the Council of Lyons ordered that cardinals 
should wear red hats and scarlet cloaks, "to show the 
readiness with which they are prepared to shed their 
blood for the liberty of the Church." According to 



*Fleury XVII., p. 204. Paris, 1769. 
flbid, p. 225. (372) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 373 

Polydore Vergil, Innocent IV. (A. D. 1254), by decree, 
ordered cardinals to wear the red hat, and Paul II. (A. 
D. .1464), the scarlet robes.* 

In 1264 Urban IV., upon the pretended revelation of 
a nun, instituted the festival of Corpus Christi (known in 
France as the Fete Dieii) and its octaves. The institu- 
tion was confirmed under Clement V. at a council held 
at Vienna in 131 i.f Thomas Aquinas composed the 
office The following is from Canon Wordsworth's 
"Tour in Italy" : 

The history of the institution of this festival is very significant. In 
the thirteenth century (A. D. 1262), a time of moral corruption and 
ungodliness, as Roman writers testify, a priest who did not believe 
the doctrine of transubstantiation, was celebrating mass at Bolsena, in 
Tuscany, and saw the host trickle with blood, which is the subject of 
Raffaelle's frescoes in the Vatican in the stanza of Heliodorus. Pope 
Urban IV. heard the tidings of the prodigy, and went to Bolsena and 
gave orders that the corporal tinged with blood should be carried in 
procession to the cathedral of Orvieto, where it is still exhibited. In 
the year 1230, a holy woman, near Liege, a Cistercian nun, Santa 
Giuliana, had a vision, in which she beheld the moon, which, although 
full, seemed to have a portion of it broken off ; and when she asked 
what was the meaning of this fragmentary appearance, she was 
informed that the moon represented the Church, and the gap in it 
denoted the absence of a great solemnity which was necessary to com- 
plete its fullness; and that this solemnity was the festival of Corpus 
Domiui.% It was revealed as the divine will that a certain day in 
every year should be set apart for the veneration of the holy sacrament. 
The bishop of Liege adopted the suggestion, and it was confirmed by 
the apostolic legate in Belgium. Pope Urban IV., being stimulated 
by what occurred in Bolsena, and desirous of providing a perpetual 



*Polydore Vergil, De Invent. Rer., b. iv., c. vi., p. 90. London, 1551. 

fMosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, xiii., pt. ii., c. iv., s. ii., London, 

1825. Neander's Church History, vol. vii., p. 474, London, 1852. 

JThis account of the origin of thf festival may be seen in a work 

now in the fifteenth edition, by Dom Guiseppe Riva. Penitentiary of 
the Cathedral of Milan, A. D. 1862, p. 300. 



374 RED HATS, SCARLET CLOAKS, CORPUS CHRISTI. 

protest against the doctrines of Berengarius, which were then rife, 
carried the matter further, and decreed that the festival of the Corpus 
Domini should be celebrated every year on the Thursday after the 
octave of Whit Sunday, and he gave a commission to the celebrated 
Thomas Aquinas (the "doctor Angelicus "), then at Rome, to compose 
a suitable religious office for Lie occasion. 

The annual observance of the festival has received 
additional sanction from the Council of Trent in 155 1.* 
Thomas Aquinas likewise invented the theory of 
"works of supererogation and celestial treasure," 
being the supposed superabundant merits of Christ and 
the saints, placed at the disposal of the Pope, to be 
issued by him by way of indulgences, f On the subject 
of indulgences, we quote from Mosheim. "The bish- 
ops," he says, "when they wanted money for their 
private pleasures, or for the exigencies of the Church, 
granted to their flock the power of purchasing the 
remission of the penalties imposed upon transgressors, 
by a sum of money, which was to be applied to certain 
religious purposes; or, in other words, the purchased 
indulgences, which became an inexhaustible source of 
opulence to the episcopal orders, and enabled them, as 
is well known, to form and execute the most difficult 
schemes for the enlargement of their authority, and to 
erect a multitude of sacred edifices, which augmented 
considerably the external pomp and splendor of the 
Church. To justify, therefore, the^e scandalous meas- 
ures of the pontiffs, a most monstrous and absurd doc- 
trine was now invented by St Thomas in the following 
century (the thirteenth), and which contained, among 
others, the following enormities: 'That there actually 
existed an immense treasure of merit composed of the 



*Ses3. XIII., cap. 5. 

fMosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, xii., pt. ii., c. iii., s. iii. London, 1825. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 375 

pious deeds and virtuous actions which the saints had 
performed beyond what was necessary for their own sal- 
vation, and which therefore was applicable to the benefit 
of others; that the guardian and dispenser of this pre- 
cious treasure was the Roman pontiff; and that, of con- 
sequence, he was empowered to assign to such as he 
thought proper a portion of this inexhaustible source of 
merit, suitable to their respective guilt, and sufficient to 
deliver them from the punishment due to their crimes! ' 
It is a most deplorable mark of the power of superstition, 
that a doctrine so absurd in its nature, and so pernicious 
in its effects, should yet be retained and defended by the 
Church of Rome."* 

Jubilees, at the expiration of fifty years, and, finally, 
at the expiration of thirty three years, were connected 
with the sale of indulgences. Thirty-three years were 
made to correspond with the life of our Savior! The 
pecuniary profit to Rome by these jubilees was enor- 
mous, as they brought together in that city an immense 
concourse of the devout (?) to gain the benefit of the 
plenary indulgence, who paid ready cash in exchange. 
People came professedly to have their sins wiped away, 
but, if we are to credit the Roman Catholic historian, 
Fleury, another effect was produced. He tells us that 
Alexander VI. proclaimed a jubilee in A. D. 1500; and 
although the numbers in attendance were not so numer- 
ous as on former occasions, on account of the wars 
which then troubled Italy, yet "license and disorder 
reigned at Rome beyond any other place in the world. 
Crime was on the throne ; and never, perhaps, had so 



*Mosheiin's Eccl. Hist., cent, xih, cap. iii., sec. 3, London, 1825. 
See also Neander's Church History, vol. vii., p. 485, London, 1852. 



376 RED HATS, SCARLET CLOAKS, CORPUS CHRISTI. 

monstrous a corruption uf morals been seen, especially 
among the clergy."* 

In A. D. 1300, Boniface VIII. instituted the first 
jubilee, and ordered by Papal bull that it should in the 
future be solemnized once in every one hundred years, 
although, as already noted, this period was subsequently 
abridged by successive popes. 

Polydore Vergil says that Boniface "assigned the 
years according to the old feast of Apollo and Diana, 
which the Roman heathens solemnized every one hun- 
dred years, and that they were called l Ludi' seculaties.* ' 
These jubilees, he testifies, included "a clean remission, 
a pena et culpa, as well from the punishment as from the 
sin itself, "f Cardinal Parie, referring to the jubilee, in 
a letter to Pope Paul II., designates it as an imitation 
of the "early superstition. "J 

Henry Cornelius Agrippi said that "the power of 
granting indulgences, extending to souls in purgatory, 
was first decreed by Boniface VIII. "|| 

In A. D. 1 3 17, John XXII. published what are called 
the "Clementine Constitutions" — the several writings, 
partly genuine and partly spurious, erroneously ascribed 
to Clement, one of the apostolic fathers, and bishop of 
Rome from A. D. 92-102, for the purpose of giving 
them greater weight and more popular currency. The 
same Pope ordered the Ave Maria, on the words 



*Fleury's Eccl. Hist., torn, xxiv., p. 399. Paris, 1769. 

fB. viii., c. i , p. 144. London, 1551. 

% " Antiquse vanitates." See Picard's "Ceremonies et Contumes 
Religieuses," toin. i., pt. ii., p. 168. Amsterdam. 1723. 

|| De incertitudine et vanitat:' scieniiarum atque ariium, e. 01, p. 
115, Lngd, s. a. (lo31). Agrippi was a physician, philosopher and 
theologian, and died 1535. An English translation of this book was 
published in London, 1684, 8vo. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. ^J j 

addressed by the angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin, to 
be added to the prayers of Christians. The procession, 
or carrying about of the "host" under a canopy, was 
first instituted in A. D. 1360. Virgil, in his first book 
of the Gecgics, refers to the custom of the annual cele- 
bration of the feast of Ceres, directing the farmers to 
accompany the hostia, when carried in procession : 
" Annua magnse sacra refer Cereri 

***** •:;:- * 

Terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges." 

— B. i., 338-345. 

And Ovid tells us that those who followed carried 
lighted tapers and were clothed in white. And so does 
the Romish ritual direct that the priest who carries be 
covered with a white cape, and that all who accompany 
him have lighted tapers in their hands. 

The Pastophone (initiated women in the religious 
processions of the ancient Egyptians) carried the Horus 
in a box (pix) before them, and at stated intervals fell 
on their knees and offered the idol to the adoration of 
the multitude. May not this have been the origin of 
the custom in the Latin Church of carrying the wafer in 
a box, with considerable, ceremony, attended, as it is, 
with the adoration of the "multitude" in many Romish 
countries? The language of Clemens Aiexandrinus* 
(who mentions the Pastophoraef). with respect to the 
removing of the veil of the box, and the directions in 
the Canon Misses, are curiously similar. The words of 
the mass book would seem to be almost a translation of 
the oXiyov inavaareiXa^ zoo w/.ra-zzavuaror thz, ozi^cov rbu 
osov, referred to bv Clemens. 



*See the Greek Thesaurus of Stephens. Valpy's edition, vol. i., p, 
183. 
fPsed, 3, 2. 



37§ RED HATS, SCARLET CLOAKS, CORPUS CHRISTI. 

Urban V. (A. D. 1362) was the first who wore the 
triple crown. The Triregne, as the Italians call it, 
seems to have been of early date; so far back, it is stated 
(but on no sufficient authority), as the time of Clovis, 
"the first Christian king," who sent one to Hormisdas, 
bishop of Rome (A. D 520), as a pledge that he owed 
his kingdom, not to his sword, but to God. But this 
gift was not to the bishop, but to the apostle Peter 
alone; the crown was to be suspended before the altar, 
where the relics of the apostle were supposed to be 
deposited. The first bishop of Rome mentioned in his- 
tory who was crowned, was Damasus II. Before Bishop 
Mark (A. D. 335) no trace exists of evidence that bish- 
ops of Rome wore any sort of crown, except what was 
called the martyr's crown. According to some writers, 
up to the time of Boniface VIII. (A. D. 1294), bishops 
of Rome wore a tiara closed at the top. This bishop 
added to this a second. The triple crown was ordered 
to be carried in procession, as a mark of the assumed 
triple jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over the uni- 
verse.* Triple crown denotes three degrees of power, 
embracing the political as well as the ecclesiastical. 

The meanest men on earth are those who steal the 
livery of heaven to serve the devil in. The greatest 
"saint" may become the greatest rascal. Rome has 
canonized in her calendar of saints some of the greatest 
rogues the world has ever known. 

The facts we are reproducing from the pages of 
history, and which we are presenting to our readers in 
the order of time, are thoroughly reliable, and remain 
unquestioned by the intelligent reader of history. It is 

*See Picard's " Ceremonies et Continues Religieuses," vol. i., p. ii., 
pp. 50-52, notes h and a. Amsterdam, 1723. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 379 

an unsavory dish to the Roman Catholic priesthood, but 
they must gulp it down as a nauseous drug. Even to 
this hour the nations of earth are reeling under the 
baneful opiate influence of the Mother of Harlots, who 
still continues to effect political alliances with the gov- 
ernments of the world and to conclude concordats with 
the princes of this world. This "prince of the air" is 
"the spirit that works in the children of disobedience." 






INDULGENCES. 



History informs us that Urban V. (1366) was the first 
who sent to Joanna, queen of Sicily, a rose of gold in 
Lent, and decreed the consecration of a like toy every 
year upon Lent Sunday. The custom is still observed. 

The historians Platina and Polydore Vergil say that 
Boniface IX (1390) was the first who sold indulgences 
and made merchandise of them. Polydore Vergil* 
said: " Who was the first author of them (indulgences)? 
I have not read in any writer, saving that Gregory pro- 
claimed pardons as a reward of those who came to his 
stations. This seed sown by Gregory grew to a ripe 
harvest in the time of Boniface IX., who reaped the 
money for that chaff. For what cause, or by what 
authority, indulgences were first introduced into the 
Church, has given modern divines a great deal of 
trouble. In a subject which is by no means clear, I 
think it better to use the testimony of John, bishop of 
Rochester, [Bishop Fisher, A. D. 1504]^ in a work he 
wrote against Luther: 'Many persons,' said he, 'are 
inclined to place but little reliance upon indulgences, 
because their use seems to have come in rather late in 
the Church.' And then he adds: ' No orthodox [Roman 
Catholic] doubts whether there is purgatory, concerning 
which, nevertheless, there is either no mention or the 
very rarest mention in ancient writers. To this day 

*B. viii., c. i., p. 144. London, 1551; and p. 476. Amstel., 1671. 
fRoffeus, art. 18, contra Lutherum, fol. 132. Colon, 1624. 

(38o) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 38 I 

purgatory is not believed in by the Greek Church. As 
long, then, as there was no anxiety concerning purga- 
tory, no one looked for indulgences ; for all the value 
of indulgences depends upon it. If you take away 
purgatory, what use will there be in indulgences ? 
Indulgences, therefore, began when the people began to 
entertain fears about the torments of purgatory.' These 
things saith the bishop Fisher; but you, my readers, 
may perhaps think the subject of so great importance 
that you might expect more certainty in the matter 
from the mouth of God." 

It was in the Council of Constance (A. D. 1414) that 
the laity (fais — people) were first, by the authority of 
the Church of Rome, deprived of the cup at the Lord's 
Supper. The decree admits that Christ's ordinance was 
in both kinds, and that the custom in the primitive 
Church, in this respect, was to give both the elements 
to the people, "notwithstanding which," it decreed that 
the laity should be deprived of the cup.* Previous to 
this date, and from 1220, when the adoration of the 
host was instituted, the custom was introduced and 
partially adopted, but not universally admitted by the 
Church of Rome. 

It was in A. D. 1438 that the Gallican Church took 
a decided stand against the usurpation of Rome. The 
Council of Bourges,f convoked by Charles VII., who 
presided, drew up the decree, containing twenty-three 
articles, which formed the basis of what was called the 
Pragmatic Sanction, when confirmed by the French 
Parliament, July 13, 1439. These constitutions, which 



*Labb. et Coss Concilia, torn, xii., col. 99. Paris, 1672. The Latin 
text is before us. 

fLabb. et Coss., torn, xii., col. 1,429. Paris, 1672. 



382 INDULGENCES. 

were called the rampart of the Gallican Church, took 
away from the popes most of the power they possessed 
of presenting to benefices and of judging in ecclesiastical 
causes in the kingdom of France; and this independent 
power was retained until the concordat with Rome, 
made between Leo X. and King Francis L, at Bologna. 
The Pragmatic Sanction was abrogated by the Pope's 
bull at the eleventh session of the Lateran Council, 
A. D. 1516.* 

The Council of Florence (A. D. 1439) was the first 
ecclesiastical body that authoritatively declared the 
sacraments to be seven in number, f This doctrine 
received final sanction, at a later date, at Trent. At 
this Council of Florence, departed saints were, for the 
first time, authoritatively declared to be in a state of 
beatitude; and therefore now, for the first time, accord- 
ing to Romish theory, could be properly and lawfully 
invocated. The doctrine can not be proved to be 
of anterior date. $ Purgatory now first received the 
approval of a conciliar decree, but was finally confirmed 
at the Council of Trent, wholly upon assumption, and 
without the least sanction of scriptural proof. The 
decree is as follows, as translated from the Latin, which 
is before us : 

In the name, then, of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost, with the approbation of the sacred General Council of 
Florence, we decree also ["we" does not embrace Jesus Christ and 



•Ibid, torn, xiv., Concl. Lat. (A. D. 1512), Sess. XI., A. D. 1516. 
And see L'Hist. de la Prag. S. et Concordat, par Pithon. 

fDecretum. Concl. Florent. Lab. Concilia, torn, xiii., col. 584. 
Paris, 1072. 

JVeron's "Rule of Catholic Faith,"' p. 82. Birmingham, 1833; 
p. 75 from Stapleton ; and p. 99 from the Benedictine editors of 
Ambrose's work. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS, 383 

the apostles — Author] that if any true penitents shall depart 
this life in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction, bv 
worthy fruits of penance, for faults of commission and omission, their 
souls are purified after death by the pains of purgatory: and that or 
their release from their pains, the suffrages of the faithful who are 
alive are profitable to them, to-wit: the sacrifices of masses, prayers 
and alms, and other works of piety, which, according to the appoint- 
ment of the Church, are wont to be made for the faithful for other 
believers.* 



*Labb. ConcL, torn, xiii., p. 515. Paris, 1671, Sess. XXV. 



THE PAPAL PRIMACY. 



We may here affirm, as a fact, that the belief in A. 
D. i 146 was only in progression, or in process of 
'■ development"; for at this date Otho Frisigensis refers 
to the bcl.ef thus, "Some do affirm that there is a place 
of purgatory after death."* The dogma was not 
accepted by the Greeks. The Primacy of the bishop 
of Rome and the precedency of his See were now first 
defined by a so-called General Council, namely, that of 
Florence, held under Eugenius IV. It was thus defined 
at the tenth session : 

Also we decree that the holy Apostolical See and the Roman Pontiff 
has a primacy over the whole world; and that the Roman Pontiff him- 
self is the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and is the 
trua vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole Church, and the 
father and teacher of all Christians; and that to him, in the person ( f 
the blessed Peter, our Lord Jesus Christ has committed full power to 
feed, rule and govern the universal Church, according as is contained 
in the acts of the General Councils and in the holy canons. f 

This declaration is ranked by Benedict XIV., in his 
bull dated 1742, as an t; article of Catholic faith. "J The 
"acts of the General Council" and "holy canons" 
above referred to are mere inventions. They probably 



*Chron., lib. viii., c 26, quoted by Jeremy Taylor, " Dissuasive 
from Popery," c. i., s. ix., Heber's edition, vol. x., p. 149. 

fLab. Concilia, torn, xiii., Concl. Florent., Sess. X., col. 154, et seq. 
Paris, 1671. 

JBened. XIV., Bullar, torn, i., No. I, De Dog. et Ritib., sec. i., Fide 
Cathol., p. 345. Mechlin, 1826. 

(384) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 385 

relied on the forged "Decretal Epistles" which had 
been embodied in the canon law. 

The Greek Empire was now drawing near its fall. 
The Emperor Pataeologus, with some Greek bishops, 
attended the council, in the hope of obtaining aid 
against the Turks, and were weak enough to be pre- 
vailed on to subscribe to the foregoing decree. But 
when the Greek deputies returned to Constantinople, 
the Church there indignantly rejected all that had been 
done by the Greek bishops at this Council ; and in a 
council at Constantinople, held about eighteen months 
after the termination of the Council of Florence, the 
decrees of that council were declared null, and the 
synod itself condemned.* Gregory, the patriarch of 
Constantinople, who was inclined to the Latins, was 
deposed, and Athanasius chosen in his stead. The 
patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and the 
chief of the old patriarchs of Ephesus, Heraclea and 
Caesarea, were all present at this latter council, and all 
concurred in the condemnation of the decrees of the 
Florentine Council. 

The title, "Mother Church," was not, up to that 
time, assumed. Hitherto the title, "Vicar of Christ," 
was a common appellation, as applied to bishops gener- 
ally. The Council of Florence decreed that the title 
should be given to the bishop of Rome, "reserving 
the rights of the bishop of Constantinople." The title, 
however, as every intelligent person knows, is now 
assumed and appropriated exclusively by the Pope of 
Rome. 

*Labb. et Coss. ConciL Constan., Sess. II., torn, xiii., col. 1,367. 
Paris, 1672. 
26 



ROSARY OF THE VIRGIN MARY. 



Alane de Roche, of the order of Jacobins, inspired, 
as he said, by certain visions, invented the Rosary of 
the Virgin Mary, subsequently authoritatively approved 
by Sixtus IV. Mosheim, however, places the invention 
of this ecclesiastical toy at an earlier date, namely, the 
tenth century . * It is a string of beads, in the continual 
counting of which the mind is supposed to be contem- 
plating divine things. The same prayer is repeated a 
prescribed number of times, and this number is checked 
by the beads, every tenth bead being a large one. The 
word rosary means remembrancer. It appears to be 
derived from the Chaldee ro, "thought, ''and sJiareb, 
"director." The idea, as well as the thing itself, is 
manifestly of pagan origin. A certain number of pray- 
ers, it is supposed, must be gone through, and the 
beads bring the number in remembrance. A string of 
beads for the same purpose was used by the ancient 
Mexicans, f It is common among the Brahmins and 
Hindoos.! In Thibet it has been used in religious 
worship from time immemorial. Among the Tartars, 
the rosary of one hundred and eight beads has become 
a part of ceremonial dress, and there is " a small rosary 

*Mosheira's Eccl. Hist., cent, x., part ii., c. iv., s. iii. See Mabil- 
lon, Acta Sanctor, Ord. Bened., p. 58, etc. 

fSee Humboldt's "Mexican Researches," vol. ii., p. 20. London, 
1814. 

|See Kennedy's "Ancient and Hindoo Mythology," vol. ii., p. 332. 
London, 1831 (386) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 387 

of eighteen beads of inferior size, with which the 
Bouzes count their prayers and ejaculations, exactly as 
in the Roman ritual" (Sir John F. Davis, "China," 
vol. i., p. 391. London, 1857). 

Such was the accumulation of innovations down to 
this period of time, that they occupied far more space in 
the apostate Church than was occupied by the realities 
of the Bible itself. Indeed, tradition had entirely sup 
planted the Bible. The Bible had become a literary 
curiosity. Superstition and dreams and ecstatics occu- 
pied the minds of the people. Priestcraft was the craft 
of the age. The priests managed the finances of the 
ignorant masses, and subjected them to absolute penury, 
while the lustful priests themselves lived luxuriously 
upon the fat of the land. Like modern priests and 
pastors, the priests of the medieval times were always 
engaged in inventing something new that was entirely 
unknown in the Word of God. They sought after 
novelties, first to please the people, and then, having 
gained their confidence, they next sought to enslave the 
people. 

The system of salvation is the simplest thing in the 
world ; and, as such, it was intended as the greatest 
blessing to the world ; but once complicate it and place 
it beyond the grasp of the common mind, and you at 
once make it the greatest curse of the world, as the 
darkest ages of the world solemnly attest. That people 
who hold to and live upon the simplicity of the gospel, 
will live; that people which apostatize from the simplic- 
ity of the gospel will utterly fail as the representatives 
of the truth. 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 



Pope Sixtus IV. was the first person who ordered by 
decree (A. D. 1476) the solemnization of the feast of 
the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary by an 
office or service, though it was not then a doctrine of 
the Church. The festival of the Conception of the Vir- 
gin Mary was, as shown in a previous chapter, intro- 
duced at Lyons about the year 1 140, but was opposed 
by Bernard* (now a canonized saint of the Church of 
Rome) as a novelty, without the sanction of Scripture 
or reason. Bernard said that it was a "false, new, vain 
and superstitious" idea. According to Fleury, it was 
John Scott, commonlv called Duns Scotus, at the beHn- 
ning of the fourteenth century, who seriously broached 
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception f 

At the thirty sixth session of the Council of Basle, in 
A. D. 1439 ( a council, by the way, condemned and 
rejected by the Church of Rome), it was declared that 
the doctrine which asserts that the Virgin Mary was 
actually subject to original sin, should be condemned; 
but that the doctrine that she was always free from .ill 
original and actual sin, and both holy and immaculate, 
should be approved, and should be held and embraced 
by all Catholics as being pious and agreeable to all 
ecclesiastical worship, to the Romish faith, to right 
reason and the Scriptures, and that it should not be law- 

*S Bernard Ep. 174, torn, i., col. 393. Paris, 1S39. 
fEccl. Hist., torn, xix., p. 150. Paris, 1769. 

(388) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 389 

ful for any one to preach or teach to the contrary.* 
The festival was directed to be celebrated on the 17th 
of December. The Council of Avignon, A. D. 1457, 
confirmed the act of the Council of Basle, and forbade, 
under pain of excommunication, any one to preach any- 
thing contrary to the doctrine, j 

This purely speculative doctrine, and of no practical 
utility whatever to saint or sinner, created a sore divi- 
sion in the Church of Rome. The Dominicans, follow- 
ing their leader, St. Thomas Aquinas, combated the 
new dogma most vehemently, as being contrary to the 
Scriptures, contrary to tradition, and contrary to the 
faith of the Church; while at the same time it was 
vigorously supported by the Franciscans./ "The scan- 
dal became so great at each returning festival day that 
Sixtus IV. (A. D. 1483) issued a bull, in which, of his 
own accord, and unsolicited, he condemned those who 
called the doctrine a heresy, the celebration of the festi- 
val a sin, or declared that those who held the doctrine 
were guilty of mortal sin, and subjected those to excom- 
munication who acted contrary to this decree." By the 
same bull he enacted the like penalty against those who 
maintained the opponents of the doctrine to be in heresy 
or in mortal sin, declaring, as a reason, that " this doc- 
trine had not yet been decided by the Roman Church 
and the Apostolic See." This decree is found in the 
appendix of every authorized edition of the Decrees of 
the Council of Trent. Despite this Pope's bull, the dis- 
cord continued, to the great scandal of pure religion; 
and when the doctrine of "original sin'' came to be 
argued at the Council of Trent, the Dominicans and 



*Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, xii., cols. 622-623. Paris, 1671. 
fLabb. et Coss., torn, xiii., col. 1,403. Paris, 1671. 



39O IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 

Franciscans ranged themselves on opposite sides and 
refought the battle. The debate became so warm and 
excited, that the Pope ordered, through his legates, that 
the Council should "not meddle in this matter, which 
might cause a schism among Catholics, but endeavor to 
maintain peace between the contending parties, and to 
seek some means of giving them equal satisfaction ; but, 
above all, to observe the brief of Pope Sixtus IV.. which 
prohibited preachers from taxing the doctrine [the 
Immaculate Conception] with heresy."* 

The Council of Trent (A. D. 1546) expressly excluded 
from its decree on "original sin," the Virgin Mary; 
but declared "that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV., 
which it revives, are to be observed under the penalties 
contained in those constitutions. "/Thus both parties 
claimed the victory. The theological contest raged as 
violently as ever. v In the seventeenth century Spain was 
thrown into the utmost confusion by these painful and 
puerile disputes; and an attempt was made to bring 
them to a close by an appeal to the supposed infallible 
head of the Church, who was importuned to issue his 
bull to determine the question./, "But (observes Mos- 
heim) after the most earnest entreaties and importuni- 
ties, all that could be obtained from the Pontiff by the 
Court of Spain was a declaration intimating that the 
opinion of the Franciscans had a high degree of proba- 
bility on its side, and forbidding the Dominicans to 
oppose it in a public manner ; but this declaration was 
accompanied by another, by which the Franciscans were 
prohibited in turn from treating as erroneous the doc- 
trine of Dominicans, "f 



*F. Paul Sarpi. Hist. Concl. Trid., lib. ii., c. 68. Geneva, 1629. 
fMosheim's Eccl. Hist., cent, xvii., sec ii., part i., c. i., s. 48. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 39I 

Alexander VII., A. D. 1661, while reviving the. con- 
stitutions of Sixtus IV., vainly endeavored to allay the 
feud; but he admitted that the Church had not decided 
the vexed question, and that he by no means desired or 
intended to>decide it.* 

Clement XI. appointed a festival in honor of the 
Immaculate Conception, to be annually celebrated by 
the Church of Rome ; but the Dominicans refused to 
obey this law. 

Eventually Pope Pius IX. undertook to decide, as he 
conceived, for all time, the much-vexed question. On 
the 2d of February, 1849, he issued his famous <l Ency- 
clical Letter," addressed to all "patriarchs, primates, 
archbishops and bishops of the whole Catholic world," 
exhorting each one to offer up prayers in his diocese, 
beseeching ' ' of the merciful Father of light to illumi- 
nate him [the Pope] with the superior brightness of his 
Divine Spirit, and to inspire him with a breath from on 
high, and that, in an affair of such great importance, he 
might be able to take such a resolution as should most 
contribute as well to the glory of his holy name as to 
the praise of the Blessed Virgin and the profit -of the 
Church militant," and desired to know their opinion on 
the subject. On the 24th of March following, the Tab- 
let, a prominent Romish journal, announced that the 
Pope was about to give a definite decision on the sub- 
ject, and " determine a question which, for five hundred 
years, had been open, and for a portion of that time 
hotly debated to and fro. The Franciscans and Domin- 
icans are now agreed, and the whole (Roman) Catholic 



-■•Alex. Sept., An Dora. 1661, "Mag. Bull Romanum," torn, vi., p. 
158. Edit. Luxumberghi, 1727. 



39 2 IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 

world calls for a definite sentence from the infallible 
judge." 

In December, 1854, the Pope, in an assembly of 
bishops, from which all non-contents were excluded, 
issued his bull declaring- the doctrine as a matter of 
faith.* "Let no man (says the decree) interfere with 
this our declaration, pronunciation and definition, or 
oppose or contradict it with presumptuous rashness. 
If any should presume to assail it, let him know that he 
wiil incur the indignation of the Omnipotent God, and 
of his blessed apostles Peter and Paul." Hence the 
Ta Met observed, that "whosoever should thenceforth 
deny that the Blessed Virgin was herself, by a miracu- 
lous interposition of God's providence, conceived with- 
out the stain of original sin, is . to be condemned as a 
heretic. " 

Such is a brief history of the doctrine of the Immacu-. 
late Conception ; but it is a popular fallacy to suppose 
that it is a doctrine of the Roman Church. The Pope 
of Rome, according to the orthodox principles of that 
Church, can not create doctrines of faith which have not 
emanated from a general council of the Church 

The horrid Inquisition was established in the kingdom 
of Castile in 1478, under Ferdinand and Isabella. We 
note this as an important fact, because the Inquisition 
was an annex to the Church of Rome. Fleury expressly 
says that it was done " by the counsel of the archbishop 
of Seville, and by the authority of Pope Sixtus IV. "f 

The beginning of the institution can be traced to an 
earlier date. At the -Council of Verona, A. D. 11 84, 



*The "Univers," Paris, 20th January, 1855; the "Tablet," Lon- 
don, 27th January, 1855. 

fFleury, Eccl. Hist. Cont., torn, xxiii., p. 478. Paris, 1769. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 393 

Pope Lucius III. published a constitution against 
alleged heretics, wherein bishops were ordered, by 
means of commissaries, to inform themselves of persons 
suspected of heresy, whether by common report or 
private information. Should spiritual terrors be of no 
avail, the offender was to be handed over t > the secular 
power, in order that temporal punishment might be 
inflicted.* 

At the Council of Narbonne, A. D. 1235,7 a series 
of oppressive and cruel regulations against alleged 
heretics was drawn up by the Pope's command; and at 
the Council of Beziers, A. D. 1247, tn " preaching 
friars' Inquisition, for the provinces of Aix, Aries and 
Ebrum, was established also by order of the Pope. 
Forty-seven articles were drawn up, which, with those 
passed at the Council of Narbonne, formed the founda- 
tion of the rules afterward adopted by the Inquisition. J 

In A. D. 1495, Alexander VI. assumed a new power, 
namely, that of granting a dispensation to marry within 
a prohibited degree. He gave a dispensation to Ferdi- 
nand, the King of Naples, to marry his own niece, who 
was fourteen years of age. || 

;;: "Labb. et Coss. Concl., torn, x., cols. 1,737 and 1,741. Paris, 1671. 

flbid, torn, xi., col. 487. 

JLabb. ct Coss., torn, xi., col. 676. 

'JFleury, Cont., torn, xxiv., p. 226. Paris, 1769. 



SALE OF INDULGENCES. 



In the years A. D. 15 15-17, took place the grand 
sale of indulgences by Pope Leo X., which, as every 
intelligent reader knows, was one of the immediate 
causes of the Reformation. This method was adopted 
to replenish his coffers, which were exhausted by his 
prodigality, or rather by his extravagances; and also to 
complete the church of St. Peter, begun by Julius II. 
Fleury informs us that Leo granted indulgences on 
"such easy conditions, that men could hardly care at 
all for their salvation if they refused to gain them."* 

The order of the Jesuits was founded by Ignatius 
Loyola in 1540. This distinguished servant and agent 
of the propaganda de fide was born A. D. 1491, in the 
province of Guipuscoa, in Spain. He was educated for 
the army, but eventually left the service and entered 
the Church. He died July, 1556. The order was con- 
firmed by Paul III., first with limitations, and subse- 
quently without any restrictions. 

Since the days of the apostles not a council of cardi- 
nals, not a convocation of clergymen, not a general 
conference of bishops, and not a convention, composed 
exclusively of preachers, ever assembled, that did not 
concoct mischief, in some sense contradict the word of 
God, and pass decrees and resolutions more or less con- 
tradictory to the authority of Jesus Christ. Crafty men 



*Fleury, Cont., torn, xxv., pp. 497, 498. 

(394J 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 395 

plot and plan in secret; they buy up small men at a 
small price to serve as their willing dupes ; they pack 
their committees and caucuses in advance ; they frame 
all their laws of expediency in advance, and prepare 
their fallacies and casuistry before the time of action ; 
they promise to reward their bought-up tools with 
places of emolument and distinction. In all their 
ambitious plans they see the end from the beginning. 
One head generally rules the ecclesiastical rookery. 
The marks of his shrewd intellect are everywhere visi- 
ble in whatever develops in the convocation or in the 
convention. In open convention the iaw of expediency 
supplants the law of God ; self-interest takes the highest 
seat in the synagogue, and the majority are made 
subservient to the pronouncements of the ruling spirit. 



COUNCIL OF TRENT AND TRADITION. 



The Council of Trent assembled A. D. 1545, col- 
lected in one mass all former errors and superstitions, 
and, without the fear of God before their eyes, con- 
firmed them by conciliar decree. In A. D. 1546 tradi- 
tion was first placed on a level with the Holy Scriptures. 
The doctrine is essential to the existence of the Papal 
system, for, under the cloak of tradition, all her inno- 
vations are attempted to be supported. By adopting 
tradition, they in effect declare the Word of God to be 
insufficient. Without tradition, and everything that 
the term implies, the Roman system of theology would 
fall to pieces. 

Even as late as the latter part of the fifteenth century, 
an eminent cardinal of the Roman Church, Gabriel 
Biel. affirmed that "the Scripture alone teaches all 
things necessary to salvation," and instances "in the 
things to be done and to be avoided, to be loved and to 
be despised, to be believed and hoped for." "The 
will of God is to be understood by the Scriptures, and 
by them alone we know the whole will of God."* The 
apocryphal books were for the first time authoritatively 
recognized as a part of the sacred canon of the Holy 
Scriptures. 

"As the Church is evidently more ancient than the Scriptures, 
so the Scriptures were not authentic, save by the authority of the 
Church." — Eckii Enchiridion de Ecclesia et ejus Auctoritate, etc., p. 21. 
Colonise, 1567. 



*Lecton, in Canon Missse, fol. cxlvi., p. 1, col. 2. Lugd., 1511. 

(396) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 397 

This subject will be more fully elaborated hereafter. 

In June, 1546, the Council of Trent, at its fourth 
session, occupied much of its time in defining- what 
was the doctrine of the Church on the subject of orig- 
inal sin, justification, good works and merit. The 
various opinions held by members of the Romish 
Church up to this date render it certain that the teach- 
ing, on any of these points, was not fixed. It is true 
that the priesthood, from sordid and corrupt motives, 
had, for many years, preached up merit and good works 
as a cause of salvation, to the almost entire exclusion 
of grace, faith and obedience. This Council conveyed 
its opinion under different heads, embodied in sixteen 
chapters and thirty three decrees, accompanied by as 
many anathemas, or curses, if not accepted. These 
decrees, however, were not passed without considerable 
unseemly and unministerial brawling. The Franciscans 
and Dominicans were, as usual, at daggers drawn. Two 
venerable prelates manifested their exuberant zeal in 
pressing their private opinions, by coming to blows and 
tugging at each other's beards;* and Charles V. threat- 
ened to throw them into the Adige if they would 
not deport themselves in a more becoming man- 
ner. The opinions being so various, it was necessary 
to frame the decrees ambiguously; and so completely 
had the Council succeeded in mystifying the subject, 
that no sooner had the Council ended, than Dominic a 
Soto, who took a leading part in the debates, published 
a book on justification, which wa^ answered by Andreas 
Vega, who had opposed his views in the Council ; and 
each claimed the authority of the same Council in sup- 



*Card. Pallavicini's Hist. Concl. Trid., torn, i., p. 277. Aug. 
Vind., 1775. 



39$ COUNCIL OF TRENT AND TRADITION. 

port of his particular views. These discussions and 
angry debates between different schismatic parties, 
continued in the Romish Church for a long time after 
the closing of this famous Council. It may be safely 
asserted that, previous to June, 1546, the doctrine on 
these subjects was not defined by the Romish Church. 
There are, however, two points most explicitly defined 
by this Council. First, by the twenty-fourth canon on 
justification, he is anathematized who says that good 
works are the w< fruits and signs of justification received, 
and not the cause of its increase." And second, "If 
any shall say that the good works of a justified man are 
in such sort the gifts of God as not to be also the merit 
of the justified person ; or that the justified do not 
really merit increase of grace and eternal life," they are 
equally cursed. It was a great scriptural truth uttered 
by " Saint" Augustine when he said that " all our good 
merits are only wrought in us by grace; and when God 
crowns our merits, he crowns nothing else but his own 
gifts"* So repugnant, however, was this sentiment to 
the interests of a sordid and corrupt church, that the 
passage was ordered to be expunged from his works, f 
The necessity of the priest's intention to give validity 
to a sacrament was first decreed at the seventh session 
<?{ the Council of Trent (Con. Trid , Sess. VII., Decre- 
tum de Sacramentis in Genere, can. xi. , p. 77. Paris, 
edit. 1848). The idea was invented by the Council of 
Trent, but it formed no pare of the doctrine of the 
Church of Rome previous to this date, as is evident by 

*Aug. ad Sextum, Epist. cv., torn. ii. Edit. Basil, 1529; and also 
p. 1,116, torn, iv., part ii. Paris, 1671. 

flndex Expurgatorious jussu LSernardi de Sandoval et Roxas. 
Madriti, 1612, et per Turretin. Geneva-, 1619. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 399 

the discussions on the subject, and the opposition it 
received when proposed. All of which goes to show 
the wickedness of unauthorized councils, and the greater 
wickedness of the things transacted in them. The 
necessity of the priest's intention to give validity to a 
sacrament, was a notion mentioned in the decree of 
Eugene at the Council of Florence, 1439.* It is certain 
that for twelve hundred years no trace whatever of this 
doctrine can be found in any ecclesiastical writer. The 
original introduct on is attributed to the extreme igno- 
rance of some of the priests, the service being per- 
formed in Latin, a language they did not understand; 
hence their unintentional mutilation of the text, not 
understanding the words. This gave rise to a discussion 
among school-men, whether a priest who corrupts the 
sacramental words, in pronouncing them, celebrated a 
valid sacrament. "The opinions seemed to be that, 
though the priest knew nothing of what he was saying, 
yet if the intention of doing what the Church did was 
there, it was sufficient. This appears to have been the 
reasoning of Pope Zachary, in answer to Boniface, f 
about the ignorance of a priest in Bavaria, who had 
baptized in nomine Patria, Fi/ia, et Spiritua Sancta % 
Down to the time of passing the decree at Trent 
(M irchj 1547), declaring the intention of the priest 
essentially necessary, it appears that all that was 
required was that, provided the intention existed, the 
sacrament was valid, though the form of words was 
incorrect. It is, nevertheless, a fact that the Church 



•Lubb. et Cos-;. Concl., torn, xiii., col. 535. Paris, 1672. 
fAvont. Annal., B. 1, 3, p. 297. Ingolst, 1554. 
|3es "Gibson's Preservative," vol. viii., p. 208, revised edition. 
London, 1848, 



400 COUNCIL OF TRENT AND TRADITION. 

of Rome at this very day requires that the form should 
be strictly correct, to give validity to the so-called 
sacrament. 

The seven (so called) sacraments were confirmed, as 
an article of faith, at the seventh session of the Council 
of Trent.* This particular number was first advanced 
by Peter Lombard, bishop of Paris, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, as a private opinion ; which private opinion in 
time becomes the pivotal point of a new creed, and the 
chrysalis of a new sect, as the history of a corrupt 
church has demonstrated a thousand times. In 1439 
the Council of Florence passed a decree on the subject; 
but this is denied by some to be a general council, and 
many after this date disputed on the doctrine, and the 
matter formed the subject for serious debate, disputes 
and bickerings at the seventh session of the Trent 
Council. The astute doctors of theology who formed 
this Council sought to support their theory from anal- 
ogy. They could find no better argument for their new- 
conceit than that the number seven was a mystical num 
ber: as for instance, there are seven virtues, seven 
capital vices, seven planets, seven defects which came 
from original sin; the Lord rested the seventh day; 
there were seven plagues in Egypt, seven candlesticks, 
etc.; and, therefore, you see, there should be seven 
sacraments ;f but Cardinal Bellarmine, perhaps, gives the 
most conclusive reason why we should adopt this num- 
ber, which is, that the Council of Trent so decreed it. J 



*Concl. Trid., Sess. VII., Decretum de Sacramentis, can. i., De 
Sacramen. etGeneie. 

fVide Father Paul Sarpi's '' History of the Council of Trent," 
lib. iii., cap. 85, vol. i., p. 576. London, 1736. 

JBell., De Effect. Sacr., lib. ii., c. 25, s. 4, torn, iii., p. 109. Edit. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 4.6I 

In A. D. 155 1 the doctrine of attrition was defined. 
Gibson, in his "Preservative from Popery," says that 
Bishop Canus was the first* that broached the doctrine 
that attrition, joined with the sacrament of penance, is 
sufficient to obtain forgiveness of sins.f This so-called 
sacrament of penance is stated to be as necessary to 
salvation to those who have sinned after baptism, as 
baptism itself for the unregenerate ;J and the Trent 
Catechism says: "There is no sin however grievous, 
no crime however enormous, or however frequently 
repeated, which penance does not remit. To it belongs 
in so special a manner the efficacy of remitting actual 
guilt, that, without its intervention, we can not obtain 
or hope for pardon " The three necessary or compo- 
nent parts are stated to be contrition (or more correctly, 
attrition), confession, and absolution and satisfaction, 
which are the component elements of the sacrament. § 
It is modestly admitted that contrition alone (that is, a 
sorrow and detestation of past sin, from a love to God, 
and a determination to sin no more), without confession, 
absolution and satisfaction, but with a desire for them, 
will obtain the grace and the pardon of God. But 
imperfect repentance (attrition), (that is, a turning from 
sin, from a selfish motive, such as a fear of punishment) 
will not alone obtain pardon ; but, nevertheless, when 
accompanied by confession, and absolution and satis- 
faction, it will obtain grace and pardon in this so-called 

*At th'3 fourteenth session of the Council of Trent, c. iv. 

tGibson's Preservative, vol. ii., tit. viii., pp. 87, 38, folio edition. 
London, 1738. 

JConcl. Trid., Sess. XIV., cap. ii., ad fin. 

||Donovan's Translation, pp. 2>>0, 261. Dublin, 1829. Donovan 
was a professor at Maynooth College. 

IConcl. Trid., Sess. XIV., cap. 3. 

27 



402 COUNCIL OF TRENT AND TRADITION. 

sacrament of penance. That is to say, an imperfect 
repentance of sin in this so-called sacrament of penance 
is sufficient to obtain pardon of sin !* Delahogue 
plainly lays down the rule — "Perfect repentance is not 
required in order that a man may obtain the remission 
of his mortal sins in the sacrament of penance. "f 



:: 'See Donovan's Translation as above, pp. 269, 2*0, 271, and Conch 
Trid., Sess. XIV., c. 4. 

fTract. de Sacr. Pcenit. Dublin, 1825. 



MORTAL SIN AND VENIAL SIN. 



Did the apostles ever indulge in such consummate 
nonsense as to define the difference between "mortal 
sin" (a sin for which there is no forgiveness, which 
penance can not reach), and "venial sin" (a sin which 
penance can reach, and for which there is forgiveness)? 
Such hair-splitting of undefmable dogmas may well 
engage the attention of demented scholastics, and as a 
by-play amuse university sophomores ; but men of 
refined intellects and of clean consciences should be 
ashamed to dally with such metaphysical jargon, which, 
while it obscures the plain teaching of God's word, 
finally deludes and damns its votaries. 

At a council held at Edinburgh, by Archbishop 
Andrews, in 1852, it was declared that the Lord's 
Prayer might be said to the saints.* 

In 1563 the doctrine of purgatory was finally con- 
firmed at the twenty-fifth and last session of the Council 
of Trent. This Council passed on matters of doctrine, 
fifteen decrees, forty-four chapters, and one hundred 
and thirteen canons; and it enforced these doctrines by 
one hundred and twenty-five anathemas ! This Council 
also was occupied on internal reformation. On this head 
it passed one hundred and forty-eight chapters. Its 
sittings extended over eighteen years. The first session 
was held in the month of December, 1545, and the last 



^Bifihop Skinner's Eccl. Hist. Scot., vol. ii., p. 39. London, 1788. 

(403) 



404 MORTAL SIN AND VENIAL SIN. 

in December, 1563. Until this date (1564), all those 
who purely and simply subscribed to the articles of the 
Nicene Creed were declared members of the true 
Church, inasmuch as no new creed or symbol of faith 
was proposed to any one for belief as a test of his 
orthodoxy. 



PAPAL USURPATIONS. 



We are not yet through with the acts of the Council 
of Trent. The theological doctors of this Council, 
who assumed to legislate for Jesus Christ, at the third 
session, in February, 1546, ordained "that the symbol 
of faith which the holy Roman Church makes use of 
[the Nicene Creed], as being that principle wherein all 
who profess the faith of Christ must necessarily agree, 
and that firm and only foundation against which the 
gates of hell shall never prevail, be expressed in the 
very same words in which it is read in all the churches." 
From after the 9th of December of this year (A. D. 
1564) Pope Pius IV., by virtue of his alleged apostolic 
authority, and according to a resolution of the Trent 
Council, set forth and published a confession of faith to 
be received everywhere under penalties enacted by the 
same unauthorized and unscriptural Council. This new 
confession of faith consisted of the "symbol of faith" 
just referred to, with the addition of twelve more arti- 
cles. From the last-mentioned date, therefore, a new 
creed was, for the first time, imposed upon the Christian 
world, to be accepted without a demur, or to be rejected 
under pain of Papal maledictions. This creed embraces, 
in a few words, a large part of what has gone before ; 
but the following are additional articles of the new faith, 
then, for the first time, introduced by this creed [we 
shall give the Bull of Pope Pius IV. presently]: 

1. Not only apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions are 

(405) 



406 FAPAL USURPATIONS. 

to be most steadfastly admitted and embraced, but also 
"all other observances and constitutions" of the 
Romish Church. 

2. At the fourth session of the Council of Trent, it 
was decreed that no one should dare, in matters of faith 
and morals, to interpret the Scriptures contrary to the 
sense which the Church hath held or doth hold.' 1 ' Pro- 
fessors of the Christian religion were now, for the first 
time, compelled to admit the Holy Scriptures according 
to that sense only which the Church has held or does 
hold — a notable difference; for previous to this date, 
Christians might reject the interpretation of the Church, 
but they were not allowed to advance an interpretation 
of the Scriptures contrary to the sense of the Church. 

3. And so, at the same session, no person was 
allowed to advance an interpretation of Scripture con- 
trary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers. "f 
But now, for the first time, no Christian was permitted 
to understand or interpret the Scriptures, except accord- 
ing to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. That is, 
no interpretation must be given unless the Fathers are 
unanimous on that interpretation. Here, now, by the 
authority of a great human council, the decrees and 
traditions of uninspired men are made to supersede the 
teaching of the inspired apostles of Jesus Christ 

4. And now, for the first time, all Christians were 
to receive and admit, as an article of faith, "all the 



*" Contra eum sensum, quern tenuit et tenet sancta mater ecele- 
sia." Sess. IV., Decret. de Edit, et usu sacr. librorum, "Juxto eum 
sensum," etc. Bulla super forma jura. Prof, fidei, Pii IV. 

t" Contra unanimem conseni-um Patrum," Session IV. Ibid et 
Sic Synodus in Trullo, c xix., quam putant Constant., vi., c. Exiit. 
circa fin. de ver, Sig. in 6 — " Msi juxta unanimem, etc.," Bulla, 
etc., Pii IV. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 40/ 

received and approved ceremonies of the Church in the 
solemn administration " of all the seven sacraments, 
"and all other things delivered and defined by the 
sacred canons and ecumenical councils;" thus forming 
the entire code of decrees of councils, including cere- 
monies, into articles of faith. 



THE POPE SUPREME BISHOP. 



Whili«: for many centuries the Pope of Rome arro- 
gated to himself the title of "Supreme Bishop," all 
were now required, by decree of the Council of Trent, 
as an article of faith, to recognize the Church of Rome 
"as the mother and mistress of all churches," and to 
"promise obedience to the Pope as successor of St. 
Peter and vicar of Christ!/ In this connection we wish 
to quote from Home's Popery Delineated (London, 1848, 
pp. 211, 212): 

The mother church was the church at Jerusalem, which was in 
existence long before the Church at Koine had any being. At Jeru- 
salem Jesus Christ himself preached : there the aposilea first planted 
Christianity (Acts i. 4, A. D. 33); and thence was the gospel sent 
forth to I).' preached to all nations (Luke xxiv. 47). Therefore not 
Rome, but Jerusalem, should claim the presidency and he "the 
mother of all churches." The church at Samaria was founded next 
to the church at Jerusalem (Acs viii., A.I). 34); and then the 
churches at Cyprus and Phehice, and at Antioch, by those Christians 
which were dispersed in consequence of the persecution which fol- 
lowed the martyrdom of St. Stephen (Acts xi. 19-21). In short, not 
a single writer ever affirmed that "Rome is the mother of all 
churches." On the contrary, the majority of the bishops who con- 
vened at the Second General Council of Constantinople expressly gave 
the appellation to Jerusalem, in their letter to Damasus, bishop of the 
church in Jerusalem, "which is the mother of all the churches." 

We have now seen that the masterpiece of Roman 
craft and priestly invention was consummated in the 
year of our Lord 1564, at the Council of Trent. 
While the apostles were yet living, the evil leaven had 
begun to work. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, 

(408) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 4O9 

warned them that "the day of Christ shall not come, 
except there come a falling away first, and that man of 
sin be revealed, the son of perdition ; who opposes and 
exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is 
worshiped ; so that he, as God, sits in the te;nple of 
God, showing himself that he is God." And he adds, 
" For the mystery of iniquity doth already work." In 
another epistle he gives as signs of the coming apostasy, 
" forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from 
meats, which God hath created to be received with 
thanksgiving." 

From what we have written, it is seen how fully these 
prophetic warnings have been verified in the history of 
the Church of Rome, and how necessary it is to heed 
these expressive words: "Come out of her, my people, 
that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you 
receive not of her plagues." 

Since 1870, when Pope Pius IX. promulgated the 
monstrous doctrine of Papal infallibility, which was the 
climax of all human assumption and presumption, there 
has been a cessation of innovations by that hierarchy 
upon the spiritual dominion of the Church of Christ. 
Indeed, in the promulgation of that hideous doctrine, 
Rome's ambition hath overleaped itself. It seemed 
utterly impossible for the Papacy to make further 
encroachments upon the Church of Jesus Christ, and 
upon the personal liberties of mankind. Her political 
power has been waning ever since. By that act she 
forfeited the respect of the entire civilized world. 
Though baffled by all modern political governments, 
she still seeks, through other channels, universal empire. 
Thwarted in her reaches for political power, and dis- 
mayed by the enlightenment and liberation of the 



4IO THE POPE SUPREME BISHOP. 

masses in all nations, she plays the fawning sycophant 
before governors and princes and presidents, with a view 
of retaining her power and securing still greater advan- 
tage. True to her original and natural instincts, though 
she does not change her principles, she changes her 
plans of attack, modifies her manners and modes of pro- 
cedure, and adapts herself to all changing circumstances, 
whether religious, political, social or educational. 

It is astonishing to observe what a hold tradition has 
upon the religious world. With all our Bibles, and 
with all our commentaries upon the Bible, and with a 
copious distribution of the Bible in all lands, a much 
larger portion of the human family seem to be under 
the influence of tradition than under the influence of the 
Bible. Of course this remark does not apply to the 
countries where the Bible is not known. 

The Council of Trent, by the first decree at its fourth 
session - having stated that ''having constantly in view 
the removal of error and the preservation of the purity 
of the gospel in the Church, which gospel, promised 
before by the prophets in the Sacred Scriptures, was 
first orally published by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
of God, who afterward commanded it to be preached 
by his apostles to every creature, as the source of all 
saving truth and discipline" — declared " that this truth 
and discipline are contained both in written books and 
j in unwritten traditions, which have come down to us 
either received by the apostles from the lips of Christ 
himself, or transmitted by the hands of the same apos 
ties, under the dictation of the Holy Spirit." It further 
declared that, "following the example of the orthodox 
Fathers, the Council doth receive and reverence, with 
equal sentiments of piety and veneration, all the books 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 41 I 

as well of the Old as of the New Testament ; and also 
the aforesaid traditions, pertaining- both to faith and 
manners, whether received from Christ himself or dic- 
tated by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the Catholic 
Church by continual succession." And it is important 
to observe that, ''lest any doubt should arise respecting 
the sacred books which are received by the Council," it 
"judged proper" to send out a list of such books, but 
it does not set out what are the points of faith handed 
down by " continual succession," as forming the unwrit- 
ten tradition. The object of this omission is apparent; 
for what can not be proved by Scripture finds shelter 
under the dark and mystic mantle of tradition. 

As the Roman bishop, Canus, ingeniously observed, 
"Tradition is not only of greater force than the Scrip- 
tures, but almost all disputations with heretics are to be 
referred to traditions.'"* The all-importance of traditions 
to the Romish Church is summed up in the following 
passage from a work of a popular writer of his day, 
Costerus. Expatiating on the excellence and import- 
ance of tradition, he says : 

The excellency of the unwritten word doth far surpass the Scripture, 
which the apostles left us in parchments ; the one is written by the 
finger of God, the other by the pen of apostles. The Scripture is a 
dead letter, written on paper or parchment, which may be razed or 
wrested at pleasure ; but tradition is written in men's hearts, which 
can not be altered. The Scripture is like a scabbard that will receive 
any sword, either leaden, or wooden, or brazen, and suffereth itself 
to be drawn by any interpretation. Tradition retains the true sword 
in the scabbard ; that is, the true sense of the Scripture in the sheath 
of the letter. The Scriptures do not contain clearly all the mysteries 
of religion, for they were not given to that end to prescribe an abso- 
lute form of faith; but tradition contains in it all truth, it comprehends 
all the mysteries of faith, and all the estate of the Christian religion, 

*Mel. Canus Loc. Theol. 3, cap. iii., p. 156. Colon, 1605. 



412 THE POPE SUPREME BISHOP. 

and resolves all doubts which may arise concerning faith ; and from 
hence it will follow that tradition is the interpreter of all Scriptures, 
the judge of all controversies, the remover of all errors, and from 
whose judgment we ought not to appeal to any other judge; yes, 
rather, all judges arc hound to regard and follow this judgment. * 

We, as a reformatory people, par excellence, have, in 
times past, made proclamation to the world that we 
reject all traditions, that we accept only the words of 
life as recorded by the eight writers of the New Testa- 
ment, and that we propose to clear the Church of God 
of all innovations; but let the reader look around and 
see how the congregations are pestered with the tradi- 
tion of men's hearts, and how impiously they have laid 
aside the word of God for the expediencies and inven- 
tions of men. See how pagan classics have been substi- 
tuted for the Scriptures, how the pulpit has been pagan- 
ized, the Sunday-school secularized, and the worship 
of God corrupted. It is not necessary to give details. 



*Coster. Eucharist, cap. i., p. 44. Colon, 1605. Quoted by Sir H. 
Lynd, Via Devia, sec. viii. 



BULL OF POPE PIUS IV. 



Here is the Bull of Pope Pius IV., which we prom- 
ised to reproduce : 

BULL OF POPE PIUS IV. 

TOUCHING THE FORM OF THE OATH OF THE PROFESSION OF FAITH. 

Pius, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, for the 
perpetual memory hereof. 
The office of apostolic servitude enjoined on us requires that those 
matters which Almighty God has vouchsafed divinely to inspire into 
the minds of the holy fathers assembled in his name foi the provident 
guidance of his Church, we should hasten unhesitatingly to execute, 
unto his praise and glory. Whereas, therefore, according to the reso- 
lution of the Council of Trent, all who may happen henceforward to 
be placed over cathedral and superior churches, or who may have to 
take care respecting their dignities, canonries, and any other ecclesias- 
tical benefices soever having the care of souls, are bound to make a 
public profession of the orthodox faith; and to promise and swear that 
they will continue in obedience to the Church of Rome ; we, willing 
that the same thing be observed likewise by all persons soever, who 
shall have the charge of monasteries, convents, houses, and any other 
places soever, of all regular orders soever, and besides, to the end that 
the profession of one and the same faith be uniformly exhibited by all, 
and that one only, and a certain form of it, made known unto all. 
We (willing), that a want of our solicitude should by no means be felt 
by any one in this particular, by strictly prescribing the tenor of those 
presents, we, by virtue of our apostolic authority, command that the 
form itself be published, and be received and observed everywhere by 
those whom it concerns, in consequence of the decrees of the Council 
itself, as well as the other particulars aforesaid, and that the aforesaid 
profession be made solemnly according to this, and no other form, 
under the penalties enacted by the Council itself against all contraven- 

(413) 



4H BULL OF POPE PIUS IV. 

I., N., believe and profess, with a firm faith, all and every one of 
the things which are contained in the symbol of faith which is used in 
the Holy Roman Church, namely : 

1. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and 
earth, etc. [The Nicene Creed]. 

2. I most firmly admit and embrace apostolical and ecclesiastical 
traditions, and all other constitutions and observances of the same 
Church. 

3. I also admit the Sacred Scriptures according to the sense which 
the Holy Mother Church has held, and does hold, to whom it belongs 
to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures ; 
nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than according to the 
unanimous consent of the Fathers. 

4. I profess, also, that there are truly and properly seven sacra- 
ments of the new law, instituted by Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the 
salvation of mankind, though all are not necessary for every one; 
namely, baptism, confirmation, penance, extreme unction, orders and 
matrimony ; and. that they confer grace ; and of these, baptism, con- 
firmation and orders can not be reiterated without sacrilege. 

5. I receive and admit the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, 
received and approved in the solemn- administration of all the above- 
said sacraments. 

6. I receive and embrace all and every one of the things which have 
been defined in the holy Council of Trent concerning original sin and 
justification 

7. I profess, likewise, that in the mass is offered to the true God, 
proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead ; and that 
in the most holy sacrifice of the eucharist there is really, truly and 
substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, 
of our Lord Jesus Christ; and there is made a conversion of the whole 
substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of 
the wine into the blood, which conversion the Church calls transub- 
stantiation. 

8. I confess, also, that under either kind alone, whole and entire, 
Christ and a true sacrament are received. 

9. I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the sousl 
detained there are helped by the suffrages of the faithful. 

10. Likewise that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be 
honored and invocated with Christ ; that they offer prayers to God for 
us, and that their relics are to be venerated. 

11. I most firmly assert that the images of Christ and of the Mother 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 415 

of God ever Virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and 
retained, and that due honor and veneration are to be given them. 

12. I also affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in 
the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian 
people. 

13. I acknowledge the Holy Catholic and Apostolical and Roman 
Church, the Mother and Mistress of all churches, and I promise and 
swear true obedience to the Roman bishop, the successor of St. Peter, 
the prince of the apostles and the vicar of Jesus Christ 

14. I also profess and undoubtedly receive all other things deliv- 
ered, defined and declared by the sacred canon and general councils, 
and particularly by the Council of Trent ; and likewise, I also con- 
demn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all 
heresies whatsoever, condemned, rejected and ar.athematized by the 
Church. 

15. This true Catholic faith, out of which no one can be saved, 
which I now freely profess, and truly hold, I, N., promise, vow and 
swear most constantly to hold and profess the same, whole and entire, 
with God's assistance, to the end of my life ; and to procure, as far as 
lies in my power, that the same shall be held, taught and preached by all who 
are under me. or are entrusted to my care by virtue of my office. .60 help me 
God and these Holy Gospels of God. 

The foregoing is the translation by Charles Butler, 
Esq., an eminent Roman Catholic layman, in his work 
on "The Roman Catholic Church," London, 1825, 
except those parts in italics, which he has thought 
proper to omit, and we, therefore, give this last clause 
(15) from the original: 

15. Hanc veram Catholicam fidem, extra quam nemo salvus ogsa 
potest, quam in prsesenti sponte profiteor, et veraciter teneo, eandem 
integram, et inviolatam, usque ad extremum vitse spiritum constantis- 
sime (Deo adjuvante) retinere et confiteri, atque a meis subditis, vel 
ill is quorum cura ad me in munere meo spectabit, teneri, doceri et 
prsedicari, quantum in me erit curaturum, ego idem N. spondeo, 
voveo, ac juro. Sic m? D?us adjuvet, et haee sancta Dei evangelia. — 
Concil. Trid. apnd Bullas, p. 381, et seq. Romce, 1564. 

This is the solemn and binding oath which every 
Roman Catholic bishop is obliged to take on entering 



4l6 BULL OF POPE PIUS IV. 

his priestly office. This oath is an emanation of the 
Council of Trent, which in essence is more political than 
religious, and which in intention partakes more of that 
which is earthly than that which is heavenly. It is a 
pure invention of a demoniacal spirit — a soul-devouring 
spirit — and utterly without the least semblance of 
authority in the Holy Scriptures. Witness the impu- 
dence and audacity of men— frail worms of the dust — 
who command obedience to the Pope of Rome "by 
virtue of our apostolic authority! " Not a word is said 
about "the Holy Roman Church" in New Testament 
history, and what, in this sacrilegious oath, are ca led 
•'ecclesiastical traditions," "constitutions and obser- 
vances," are but the creations of designing and mis- 
chievous men — the bold, shameless assumptions of a 
politico-religious hierarchy. It will be noticed that in 
this oath " traditions " take precedence to the " Sacred 
Scriptures," for he who takes the oath is obliged to say, 
"I also admit the Sacred Scriptures according to the 
sense wjiich the Holy Mother Church has held, and 
does hold," etc. In item "3" " the unanimous consent 
of the Fathers" (meaning such uninspired men as Ter- 
tullian, Origen, Justin Martyr, Theophilus, Irenaeus, 
Cyprian, Clement, et a/.) is placed above the words of 
Jesus Christ and the preaching of the apostles. 

The fact is, the Church of Rome is chiefly constituted 
of pagan notions, of imaginations, of Jewish ritualism, 
and -of unsupported assumptions. It is a system of 
innovations upon the divine plan This blasphemous 
oath contains five more "sacraments" than are found 
in the primitive Church which was established by the 
apostles of the Lamb. Neither the so called sacrament 
of "confirmation," nor the sacrament of "penance," 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 417 

nor the sacrament of " extreme unction," nor the sacra- 
ment of "orders," nor the sacrament of "matrimony," 
is found in apostolic teaching and apostolic practice. 
Nor are such monstrous doctrines as mass, purgatory, 
image worship and indulgences found in the word of 
God, as we have clearly shown in this series of essays. 
The bishop who affirms what is contained in item " 12 " 
must know that he is swearing to a lie. The Church 
which the Council of Trent created, is, in item " 13," 
called "the Holy Catholic. Apostolical and Roman 
Church, the Mother and Mistress of all churches," " out 
of which no one can be saved! " Everything that does 
not come forth from the Council of Trent, the bishop or 
cardinal is sworn to "condemn, reject and anathema- 
tize." Even the Word of God, if it in any way or in 
any sense conflicts with the pronouncements of the 
Council of Trent, must be condemned and rejected ! 
And the Pope of Rome, and the cardinals, and all the 
bishops, and all the priests, exult in the fact that two 
hundred million souls are serving blindly under this 
baneful and deadening influence. 



PRIVATE INTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIP- 
TURES PROHIBITED. 



In these times of loose scriptural interpretation, when 
even Protestants and Christians place tradition upon a 
level with the written authenticated Word of God, and 
when the law of expediency is made to take the same 
rank with the law of the New Testament, it seems 
almost impossible to confine even avowed Christians 
within the domain of revealed truth. There is a con- 
stant disposition to break over the ramparts of 'truth 
which God has miraculously revealed. Even by theolo- 
gians, so called, and by teachers of the Christian religion 
in our colleges, Christianity is regarded as a sort of 
progressive evolution, having a starting point in the 
days of the apostles, and gradually developing down to 
the present point of time. Let us now see how the 
Romish Church interprets the Scriptures, and then we 
may not wonder why Protestants, in many things, fol- 
low in the wide wake of Rome. 

In November, 1564, for the first time, the subjects of 
the Papal hierarchy were practically precluded from all 
personal liberty in examining and interpreting the Scrip- 
tures.* By the third article of the Creed of Pope Pius 
IV., the high functionaries of the Church of Rome, 
"promise, vow and swear constantly to hold and pro- 
fess " as follows : 



•The Council of Toulouse, A. D. 1229, and that of Oxford, 1408, 
prohibited the use of vernacular translations ; but these were provin- 
cial councils. (4*8) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 4^9 

I also admit the Scriptures, according to the sense which the Holy 
Mother Church has held, and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge 
the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures ; nor will I ever 
take and interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous 
consent of the Fathers. 

The above is the translation of the eminent Roman 
Catholic layman, Charles Butler, Esq. In his book 
entitled "Book of the Roman Catholic Church,"* he 
says that the creed, from which the above is extracted, 
"was received throughout the Universal Church, and 
has ever [since its publication] been considered, in every 
part of the world, as an accurate and explicit summary 
of the Roman Catholic faith. Non Catholics, on their 
admission into the Catholic Church, publicly repeat and 
testify their assent to it, without restriction or reserva- 
tion." And Dr. Milner, in his work called "End of 
Controversy" (Letter XIX), says that this creed is 
"everywhere recited and professed to the strict letter." 

What becomes of personal liberty here? Could any- 
thing be more unreasonable, more unscriptural, more 
despotic? Notice these two propositions: 

i. That this Church requires the stupid and credulous 
people to admit the Scriptures only and exclusively 
according to the sense she pleases to put upon them, to 
whom (as she arrogantly pretends) it belongs to judge 
of their true sense. 

2. That the common herd of humanity, outside of 
the priesthood of Rome, are never to be allowed to 
advance an interpretation of them, except the so-called 
Fathers are all agreed on that interpretation. And yet 
some of those Fathers were only dreamers, mystics and 
limping logicians. Every Romish bishop and priest 



*Page 5. London, 1825. 



4 2 PRIVATE INTERPRETATION, ETC. 

swears "to God on his Holy Gospels" to "procures a 
far as lies in his power" that this doctrine "shall be 
held, and taught, and preached by all who are under 
him, or are entrusted under his care." 

It is a notable Fact that the Church of Rome has 
never published any authoritative interpretation of the 
Scriptures ; nor is there any possibility of ascertaining 
what interpretation of the Scriptures she has or does 
hold. Even the notes invariably appended to the Rom- 
ish editions (and indeed without which no editions what- 
ever are allowed) are of no recognized authority. Before 
any member of the Roman Church, no matter what his 
logical and literary attainments may be, dare advance 
an interpretation, he must prove that that particular 
interpretation has always been, and is still, held by the 
so called " Mother Church." It is not what this priest, 
this bishop, or that pope has said, but what the 
Church says ; and we repeat that the Church of Rome 
has never published (unless very recently) an authorita- 
tive interpretation of even one single chapter of the 
Bible! The Church can not speak except by the mouth 
of a general council, and no general council has yet thus 
spoken to the world. Even after we have found an 
interpretation, we may discover it to be contradictory to 
that given by the same Church at another period under 
different circumstances ; and this is admitted by no less 
an individual than Cardinal Cusanas, who was the Pope's 
legate sent to Bohemia about the middle of the fifteenth 
century. "Nor is it surprising, " said this prelate, while 
endeavoring to induce the Bohemians to accept the 
interpretation of the Church as to half-communion, "if 
the practice of the Church interprets the Scriptures at 
one time in one manner, and at another in another — for 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 421 

the Scriptures follow the Church, which is the earlier of 
the two, and on account of which Scripture (is given), 
and not conversely."* 

Concerning the head of all ecclesiastical authority, 
Bellarmine says: " A lawful council, by the most gen- 
eral consent, is most properly termed the Church "f — 
by which he means the Church of Rome, the Church of 
the Dark Ages. This is what he calls the "Represen- 
tative Church."^ The Trent Councl, " a lawful coun- 
cil," according to Romish belief, tried its hand at an 
authoritative interpretation of the sixth chapter of the 
Gospel of John, but could not agree on the matter, and 
abandoned even the hope of coming to an agreement.,/ 
Then there is the " Essential Church," which Bellarmine 
defines in the same place to be "a company of men pro- 
fessing the same Christian faith and sacraments, and 
acknowledging the bishop of Rome to be the chief pas- 
tor and vicar of Christ on earth." Aside from the 
impossibility of appeal to such a tribunal to obtain the 
sense of the Church, we have here "laymen" joined 
with clerics, made a court of appeal. Be it understood 
that as yet, such a tribunal has not published the sense 
of the Church on any single text of Scripture. Then 
there is the " Consistorial Church," which Bellarmine 
tells us consists of "the Pope and cardinals," and is 
called "the Court of Rome." Directly, this tribunal 
has published no interpretation of the Scriptures ; but it 
has indirectly sanctioned and published interpretations 
of isolated texts. ' 4 The Sacred Congregation of Rites, " 



*Card. Cusan.. Epist. vii., ad Bohem. Opp., torn, ii., pp. 857, 858. 
Basle, 1565. 

fBell. de Cone, et Eecles , lib. i., c. 18, sec. 5. Prag, 1721. 
JIbid, lib. iii., c. 2, De Eecles. 



422 PRIVATE INTERPRETATION, ETC. 

at Rome, holds a delegated authority from this tribunal. 
We shall give a few samples of interpretations (the 
" sense of the Church," as it were) sanctioned by them. 

In the London edition (1852) of Lignore's "Glories 
of Mary," we have Dr. Wiseman's own sanction and 
" cordial recommendation to the faithful." In the pref- 
ace (p. xviii.) we are told: "Remember, dear reader, 
that it [this book] has been strictly examined by the 
authority which is charged by God himself to instruct 
you, and that that authority has declared that it contains 
NOTHING* worthy of censure." The authority here 
pointed out is the "Sacred Congregation of Rites," 
delegated by the " Consistorial Church." On page 215 
we have a very original interpretation of the Church's 
sense of that beautiful and encouraging exhortation of 
Paul (Heb. iv. 16) where he says, "Let us, therefore, 
come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may 
obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." 
To this text, set out verbatim, is added: " Mary (1. c, 
1 he Blessed Virgin) is that throne of grace to which the 
apostle St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews (iv. 16), 
exhorts us to fly with confidence, that we may obtain 
divine mercy, and all the help we need for our salvation." 

Again on page 88 : " In the first chapter of the Book 
of Genesis we read that ' God made two great lights; a 
greater light to rule the day, and a lesser light to rule 
the night' (Gen. i. 16)." We are told in this book 
"that Christ is the greater light to rule the just, and 
Mary the lesser light to rule sinners!" The Psalmist, 
David, beautifully said, alluding to the promised Mes- 
siah, " God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness." 



^The capitals are in the original. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 423 

Those not of the Romish Church have always applied 
these words to him who is at once our King, High 
Priest, Redeemer, the Christ. The " Consistorial 
Church," however, thinks otherwise, for it declares: 
k ' This was foretold by the prophet David himself, for 
he says that God (so to speak) consecrated Mary, Queen 
of Mercy, anointing her with the oil of gladness." Once 
more. In the "Song of Solomon" (i. 6) we read, 
1 ' They made me keeper of the vineyards. " The ' ' Con 
sistorial Church" tells us (p. 23) "This refers to the 
Most Blessed Virgin." This is what might be called 
home-made Scripture. The fact is, it looks like the 
work of infidels, like the willful perversion of the Living 
Oracles. At least, it is this kind of work that makes 
infidels, while involving the true sense of Scripture in 
the mystic meshes of superstitious mist. 

We now come to what Bellarmine calls "The Virtual 
Church;" that is, the " Bishop of Rome, who is said to 
be the chief pastor of the whole Church, and hath in 
himself eminently and virtually both truth and infalli- 
bility of judgment, and upon whom dependeth all that 
certainty of truth which is found in the whole Church." 
All this is as mystical and occult as it is arrogant and 
deceptive. What is here called "The Virtual Church" 
is an absolute figment of the fancy — the dream of a fud 
died mystic, an emanation of a muddied and mischievous 
scholastic. In the first place, no Pope has ever sanc- 
tioned or published an interpretation of the Scriptures. 
Popes, it is true, have sanctioned editions of Scripture ; 
but even these were miserably faulty and unscholarly. 
Clement VIII. published an edition of the Vulgate, and 
condemned the previous edition of Pope Sixtus V. , who 



424 PRIVATE INTERPRETATION, ETC. 

had subjected to excommunication any one who should 
dare to alter his edition, even in the smallest particle, 
and had declared that the offender was not to be 
absolved even by a Pope ! 






THE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH ALONE 
INTERPRETS THE SCRIPTURES. 



We have showed the sense which the " Consistorial 
Church " had fixed upon Gen. i. 16. But Pope Greg- 
ory IX. has sanctioned in his Decretals another inter- 
pretation. He says: 

God made two great lights in tie firmament of heaven; the greater 
light to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night. For the firma- 
ment of the heaven, that is, of the Universal Church, God made two 
great lights ; that is, he appointed two dignities, which are the pontifi- 
cal authority and the kingly power.* 

This ludicrous interpretation was addressed by Pope 
Innocent III. to the Emperor of Constantinople, and 
thus it had the sanction of at least two popes. It is 
furnished in a Decretal Epistle, one of the most solemn I 
papal documents; and Gratian, in the Roman Canon 
Law, asserts that the Pope's Decretal Epistles are to be 
counted among the Canonical Scriptures, f But now 
hear how profanely and contemptuously, a Romish 
priest, Dr. Doyle, treated the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture by popes. We transcribe Dr. Doyle's own words : 

As to the arguments from Scripture or tradition adduced by him 
[Pope Gregory VII.], or by any of his successors, they are such as 
will amuse, or, rather, exciLe the pity of, a serious mind. One [Bon- 
iface VIII., a Pope] wisely observed that, because an apostle said to 

*Decret. D. Greg. P. IX. de Majoritate et Obedientia. Tit. 33, p. 
424. Turin, 1621; and Gesta Innocentii III., vol. I., 29. Ed. 1632. 

fCor. Jur. Can., torn. I., Dis. XIX., part I., cap. vi., p. 90. 
Paris, 1612; and col. 55, edit. Leipsic, 1S39. 

(425) 



426 THE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH, ETC. 

our Lord, "Behold, there are two swords here," the popes have a 
right to depose kings. Such an inference might appear plausible to 
him who was already resolved on a usurpation of right; but a Christian 
is forced to blush at such a profanation of the Word of God. Gregory * * * 
quotes from St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. vi. 3), "Know you 
not that we shall judge angels, themselves? how much more worldly 
thing;?' and from this passage he claims to be invested with power 
of invading the rights of kings and emperors, nay, of remodeling the 
state of society throughout the world ; * * * but to offer argu- 
ments against such theories is too humiliating to the common sense of men.* 

Thus the "Virtual Church" is taken to task by a 
priest, in no unmeasured terms, for presuming to 
advance profane interpretations of the Scriptures; and 
we doubt much if the "Virtual Church" will be 
regarded as infallible, when generally known, even by 
" good Catholics." 

There is yet another tribunal, and that is the parish 
priest. It is a great delusion, under which some laymen 
of the Romish Church are laboring, when they are led 
to believe that the parish priest, as the representative 
of the Church in his district, is enabled to give the 
Church's infallible interpretation of any given text. 
Every parish priest may not assume this position ; but 
Bellarmine, their great authority, may, we presume, be 
taken as a type. Take one example of his interpreta- 
tion, namely, en the text Job i 14: "The oxen were 
plowing, and the asses feeding beside them." "By the 
oxen [says the astute cardinal] are meant the learned 
doctors of the Church ; by the asses are meant the 
ignorant people, which, out of simple belief, rest 
satisfied in the understanding of their superiors . "f We 
do not quote this in ridicule; yet, while protesting 



*Dr. James Doyle, '' Essay on the Catholic Claims,' 1 etc. Dublin, 
John Coyne, 1825, pp. 52-57. 

fBell., lib. I., De Justif., chap, vii., sec. ix. Prag., 1721. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 427 

against this fanciful and perverting interpretation, we 
are persuaded that there is a great deal of truth in Bel 
larmine's estimation of the relative position of the 
parish priest and his flock. 

But even the parish priest dare not presume to offer 
an interpretation of any proposed text, unless it can be 
shown that his Church has held, and does hold, that 
particular interpretation: so that, in fact, we come back 
to the original difficulty in ascertaining what the Church 
has really taught, and does teach ; for it is easy to show 
that individual priests have interpreted the same texts 
differently. "This fact is notorious," says Collette, 
"and the difference is more apparent between ante- and 
post Tridentine divines. We conclude, therefore, that, 
if the Romanist be required to hold that interpretation 
alone which his Church has always held, and does hold, 
he will have an insuperable difficulty put in his way in 
reading or understanding the Scriptures with any profit 
to himself; for we challenge the production of such an 
interpretation." 

Having sufficiently investigated that part of the 
Romish creed which restricts the interpretation of the 
Scriptures "to the sense which the Holy Mother 
Church has held, and does hold," we now proceed to 
the continuation of this Article of Faith, to believe 
which is declared to be necessary for our salvation : 
' ' Nor will I ever take or interpret them [the Scriptures] 
otherwise than according to the unanimous consent (or 
agreement) of the Fathers."* This additional restriction 
placed on the Scriptures by the Church of Rome was 



*" Nee earn unquam nisi juxta unanimem consensum Patrum 
accipiam et interpretabor," Pope Pius' Creed. Art. III., Concl. 
Trid., Apud Bullas, p. 311. lionise, 1564. 



428 THE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH, ETC. 

for the first time imposed on the Christian world, as 
before stated, in November, 1564. Romanists are 
challenged to produce this unanimous agreement of the 
Fathers on any text of Scripture on which modern 
Romish controversialists rely in order to support any 
of the modern doctrines against which anti-Romanists 
protest. It is a significant fact that, at the Fourth 
Session of the Council of Trent (April, 1546), the 
assembled divines took this very subject under their 
consideration, and passed a decree, in which they 
stated that, "in order to restrain petulant spirits, no 
one reiving on his own skill, shall, in matters of faith 
and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian 
practice, wresting the Sacred Scriptures to his own 
sense, dare to interpret them contrary to the unanimous 
agreement of the Fathers."* 

This, at first sight, seems plausible enough ; for he 
indeed would be considered a rash man, who, "relying 
on his own skill," should put an interpretation on any 
given text contrary to the universally accepted interpre- 
tation of all Christian critics and biblical scholars from 
the time of the apostles, where such interpretation can 
be ascertained; but this is a very different thing from 
what the present creed of the Roman Church requires, 
which precludes all interpretations whatever, unless all 
these Christian Fathers are agreed on that particular 
interpretation advanced. It may, therefore, be safely 
assumed that, down to November, 1564, no Christian 
was ever required to subscribe to such a declaration of 
faith. It is also evident, that this is a new "Article of 
Faith," invented by Pope Pius IV., unless, indeed, it 

* "Ant etiam contra unanim?m consensum Patrum." Sess. IV. 
Decret. de Edit, et Usu Sacroruui Librorum. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 420, 

be considered as but a modification and an approval of 
the requirements of the third canon of the Fourth 
Lateran Council, and of the injunctions of Pope Inno- 
cent IV. to the authorities at Lombardy.* 

But let us see how this rule works, when practically 
put to the test. Take the leading text, Matt. xvi. 18, 
relied on by Romanists to establish the supremacy of 
Peter, and, by assumed deduction, that of the Pope of 
Rome, by declaring that Peter was the rock upon which 
Christ was to build his Church. Bellarmine asserted 
that the Fathers (among whom the apostles of Christ 
are not included) were unanimous in this interpretation. 
This drew forth the rebuke of a celebrated Roman 
Catholic writer, Lannoy,f who, in reply, showed that 
.sixteen fathers and doctors interpreted the text in ques- 
tion as referring to Christ, and not to Peter. Eight 
held that the Church was not to be built upon Peter 
alone, but upon all the apostles equally; while, at the 
same time, only seventeen adopted the modern Roman 
interpretation. Not one of them, however, derived frorn 
that text the Pope's supremacy. The fathers differ- 
ing, then, in interpretation, this important text must, 
according to the modern Papal theory, remain a 
dead letter practically to Romanists. [The rcductio ad 
absurdum sometimes forcibly proves the fallacy of a 
proposition. The Romanists contend for literal interpre- 
tation here and elsewhere. "The rock (they say) must 
be Peter — it can not be the doctrine just before propounded 
by Peter" In this very same chapter, Matt. xvi. 23, 
Christ addresses Peter: "Get thee behind me, Satan;"" 



*Labb. et Coss., torn, xiv., col. 440, et srq. Paris, 1671. 
fLannoii Opera, torn, v., p. ii., pt. 95. Epist. VII., lib. v. Gul. 
Voello. Col. AUob, 1731. 



430 THE HOLY MOTHER CHURCH, ETC. 

therefore. Peter was literally the devil; therefore, the 
Church of Rome, being founded on Peter, is founded 
on Satan !] 

Take another famous text (i Cor. iii. 15), which is 
continually advanced to prove the Romish doctrine of 
purgatory. Bellarmine* divides the text into three 
heads, or five great difficulties, and on each head or 
difficulty he shows various conflicting opinions of the 
fathers, and none of them agreeing with the modern 
Romish interpretation. He, nevertheless, concludes 
that the text does refer to the Romish purgatory; but, 
so satisfied was Bellarmine that there was no unity of 
interpretation among the fathers, that he was con- 
strained to admit that ' ' their writings were not the rule 
of faith, neither have they any authority to bind."f So 
conscious, indeed, are Romanists of their weakness in 
this respect, that they have corrupted the genuine text 
of some of these fathers, to compel them to mouth 
modern Popery: at other times they have ordered vari- 
ous passages to be expunged from their works. Not 
unfrequently they palm off spurious productions of 
later date as the works of an early father; and when the 
evidence against them is too palpable, they do not hesi- 
tate to reject the authority altogether. For instance, 
take one of the fathers, Augustine, who, referring to 
1 Cor. iii. 15, said, " By this is meant the fire of tribu- 
lation in this world." Bellarmine says, "This opinion 
of his we have rejected."! Again says Augustine, 



*BelL, De Purg., lib. i., torn, i., c. 4. Prag., 1721. 

fScripta Patrum non sunt regulse fidei, nee habent auctoritatem 
obligandi. Bell., De Concil. Author., lib. ii., c. 12, sec. xii. Prag., 
1721. 

JBell., De Purg., lib. i., cap. v., sec. 36. Prag., 1731. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 43 I 

"Those words of St. Luke, 'I will not henceforth drink 
of the fruit of the vine,' are to be understood of the 
sacramental cup;" and deduced that there was no 
change of the substance of the elements. Bellarmine, 
therefore, again opposed him, and said, "He did not 
well consider of that text, which appears by this that 
he passed it over lightly.' 1 * 

We have now sufficiently shown how designing men 
"wrest the word of God to their own destruction;" 
how, for the accomplishment of some selfish end, they 
"handle the word of God deceitfully, " and how they 
" make merchandise of the gospel," if by so doing they 
may gain advantages over their unsuspecting fellow- 
men, and reap the reward of unrighteousness. The 
Bible, the gospel, the apostles, and even Christ himself, 
are lost to view and abandoned when plundering priests 
undertake to rear a hierarchy or introduce an order of 
things wholly unknown in the government of God. 
History for ages past is replete with illustrations of the 
fact that, when men will not receive the truth in the 
love of it, God will send them strong delusions, and 
permit them to believe a lie, that they may be con- 
demned who take pleasure in iinrighteousness, and will not 
obey the truth (2 Thess. ii. 11). 

*Bell., De Euch., lib. i., cap. xi., sec. 61. 



HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 



On this question we shall quote freely from Neander's 
History of the Christian Religion and Church, as translated 
by Prof. Joseph Torrey, Professor of Moral and Intel- 
lectual Philosophy in the University of Vermont, and 
as published by Crocker & Brewster, Boston, and by 
Wiley & Putnam, London. Dr. Augustus Neander 
was born in the university town of Gottingen. Germany, 
January 15, 1789; a man universally conceded to be by 
far the greatest of ecclesiastical historians, and sur- 
named "the father of modern church history." He 
was one of the chief promoters of the changes intro- 
duced into the Protestant establishment of Prussia, and 
of the compromise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic con- 
fessions He is also believed to have contributed more 
than any other single individual to the overthrow, on 
the one side, of that anti-historical rationalism, and, on 
the other, of that dead formal Lutheranism, from both 
of which th-e religious life of Germany had so long 
suffered. His influence was so great as to lead very 
many young men of the fatherland to embrace the vital 
doctrines of Christianity, for his own theological views 
were more positive and evangelical than those held by 
any of h ; s colleagues. By some he was regarded as 
"too liberal," the meaning of which was that he was 
more scriptural than orthodox — more Christian than 
Lutheran. We shall now hear him on infant baptism. 

(432) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 433 

Baptism [he says] was administered at first only to adults, as men 
were accustomed to conceive baptism and faith as strictly connected. 
We have all reason for not deriving infant baptism from apostolic 
institution, and the recognition of which followed somewhat later, as 
an apostolical tradition serves to confirm this hypothesis. Irenseus 
(born between 120 and 140) is the first church teacher in whom we 
find any allusion to infant baptism [italics ours]; and in his mode of 
expressing himself on the subject, he leads us at the same time to 
recognize its connection with the essence of the Christian conscious- 
ness ; he testifies of the profound Christian idea out of which infant 
baptism arose, and which procured for it at length universal recogni- 
tion. Irenseus is wishing to show that Christ did not interrupt the 
progressive development of that human nature which was to be sanc- 
tified by him, but sanctified in accordance with its natural course of 
development, and in all its several stages. 

Irenseus mystically argues as follows : He came to redeem all by 
himself; all who through him are regenerated to God ; infants, little 
children, boys, young men and old. Hence he (Christ) passed through 
every age, and for the infants he became an infant, sanctifying the 
infants ; among the little children he became a little child, sanctifying 
those who belong to his age, and at the same time presenting to them 
an example of piety, of well-doing and of obedience; among the young 
men he became a young man, that he might set them an example and 
sanctify them to the Lord.* 

Neander proceeds — 

It is here especially important to observe that infants (infantes) are 
expressly distinguished from children (paxulis), whom Christ could 
also benefit by his example ; and that they are represented as capable 
of receiving from Christ, who had appeared in their age, nothing more 
than an objective sanctification. This sanctification becomes theirs, in 
so far as they are regenerated by Christ to God. Regeneration and 
baptism are in Irenseus intimately connected ; and it is difficult to con- 
ceive how the term regeneration can be employed, in reference to this 
age, to denote anything else than baptism. Infant baptism, then, 
appears here as the medium through which the principle of sanctifica- 
tion, imparted by Christ to human nature from its earliest develop- 
ment, became appropriated to children. It is the idea of infant 
baptism, that Christ, through the divine life which he imparted to and 
revealed in human nature, sanctified that nature from the germ of its 



*Irenseus, 1, ii., c. 22, sec. 4, 
28 



434 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

earliest development. The child born in a Christian family was, when 
all things were as they should be, to have this advantage above others: 
that he did not first come to Christianity out of heathenism, or the 
sinful nature-life, but from the first dawning of consciousness, unfolded 
his powers under the imperceptible preventing influences of a sancti- 
fying, ennobling religion; that with the earliest germination of the 
natural self-conscious life, transforming the nature should be brought 
nigh to him, ere yet the ungodly principle could come into full activ- 
ity ; and the latter should at once find here its powerful counterpoise. 
In such a life the new birth was not to constitute a new crisis, begin- 
ning at same definable moment, but it was to begin imperceptibly, and 
so proceed through the whole life. Hence baptism, the visible sign 
of regeneration, was to be given to the child at the very outset ; the 
child was to be consecrated to the Redeemer from the beginning of its 
life. From this idea, founded on what is inmost in Christianity, 
becoming predominant in the feelings of Christians, resulted the prac- 
tice of infant baptism. 

This was the mystical, speculative doctrine of Irenaeus, 
which was handed down through the dark ages, and 
which has been several times revamped in modern 
times. Neander continues : 

But immediately after Irenaeus, in the last years of the second cen- 
tury, Tertullian appears as a zealous opponent of infant baptism ; a 
proof that the practice had not as yet come to be regarded as an apos- 
tolical institution ; for otherwise, he hardly would have ventured to 
express himself so strongly against it. We perceive from his argument 
against infant baptism, that its advocates already appealed to Matt. 
xix. 14, a passage which it would be natural for every one to apply in 
this manner. ^Our Lord rebuked not the little children, but com- 
manded them to be brought to him that he might bless them." Ter- 
tullian advises that, in consideration of the great importance of the 
transaction, and of the preparation necessary to be made for it on the 
part of the recipients, baptism, as a general thing, should rather be 
delayed than prematurely applied, and he takes this occasion to 
declare himself particularly opposed to haste in the baptism of chil- 
dren. In answer to the objection drawn from those words of Christ, 
he replies: ''Let them come while they are growing up; let them 
come while they are learning, while they are being taught to what it 
is they are coming ; let them become Christians when they are sus- 
ceptible of the knowledge of Christ. What haste to procure the for- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 435 

giveness of sins for the age of innocence ! We show more prudence 
in the management of our worldly concerns than Ave do in entrusting 
the divine treasure to those who can not be entrusted with earthly 
property. Let them iirst learn to feel their need of salvation ; so it 
may appear that we have given to those that wanted." 

Tertullian evidently means [says JNeander] that children should be 
led to Christ by instructing them in Christianity ; but that they should 
not receive baptism until, after having been sufficiently instructed, they 
are led from personal conviction, and by their own free choice, to seek 
for it with sincere longing of the heart. It may be said, indeed, that 
he is only speaking of the course to be followed according to the gen- 
eral rule ; whenever there was momentary danger of death, baptism 
might be administered, even according to his views But if he had 
considered this to be necessary, he could not have failed to mention it 
expressly. It seems, in fact, according to the principles laid down by 
him, that he could not conceive of any efficacy whatever residing in 
baptism, without the conscious participation and individual faith of 
the person baptized ; nor could he see any danger accruing to the age 
of innocence from delaying it ; although this view of the matter was 
not logically consistent with his own system. 

The fact that Tertullian vigorously opposed the doc- 
trine of infant baptism, as introduced about the middle 
of the second century, which was many years after the 
apostles had gone to rest, constitutes the highest and 
clearest kind of evidence that infant baptism was an 
innovation, and that it grew out of the speculations of 
Irenaeus. The controversy continued, as further set 
forth by Neander. 

But when, now, on the one hand, the doctrine of the corruption and 
guilt, cleaving to human nature in consequence of the first transgres- 
sion, was reduced to a more precise and systematic form, and on the 
other, from the want of duly distinguishing between what is outward 
and what is inward baptism (the baptism by water and the baptism by 
the Spirit), the error became more firmly established that without 
external baptism no one could be delivered from that inherent guilt, 
could he saved from the everlasting punishment that threatened him, 
or raised to eternal life ; and when the notion of a magical influence, 
a charm connected with the sacraments, continually gained ground, 



436 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM 

the theory was finally evolved of the unconditional necessity of infant 
baptism. 

About the middle of the third century this theory was already gen- 
erally admitted in the North African Church. The only question lhat 
remained was, whether the child ought to be baptized immediately 
after its birth, or not till eight days after, as in the case of the rite of 
circumcision. /The latter was the opinion of Bishop Fidus, who pro* 
posed the question to a council convened at Carthage. Cyprian 
answered it, in the year 252, in the name of sixty-six bishops. His 
answer evinces how full he was of that great Christian idea Avhicli has 
just been unfolded, and out of which the practice of infant baptism 
proceeded. But, embarrassed by his habit of confounding the inward 
with the outward, by his materialism, he mingled with it much that is 
erroneous. He declares himself against the arbitrary limitation of 
Fidus: " None of us could agree to your opinion. On the contrary, 
it is the opinion of us all, that the mercy and grace of God must be 
refused to no human being, so soon as he is born ; for since our Lord 
says in his gospel, ' The Son of man is not come to destroy men's 
souls, but to save them' i Luke ix. 50), so everything that lies in our 
power must be done that no soul may be lost. As God has no respect 
of persons, so, too, he has no respect of age, offering himself as a 
Father with equal freeness to all, that they may be enabled to obtain 
the heavenly grace. As to what you say, that the child in the first 
days of its birth is not clean to the touch, and that each of us would 
shrink from kissing such an object, even this, in our opinion, ought to 
present no obstacle to the bestowment of the heavenly grace : for it is 
written, 'To the pure, all things are pure;' and none of us ought to 
revolt at that which God has condescended to create. Although the 
child be but just born, yet it is no such object that any one ought to 
demur at kissing it to impart the divine grace and the salutation of 
peace (i. e., the brotherly kiss, which was given to persons newly bap- 
tized, as the sign of the fellowship of peace in the Lord), since each 
of us must be led, by his own religious sensibility, to think upon the 
creative hands of God, fresh from the completion of their work, 
which we kiss in the newly formed man when we take into our arms 
what God has made. As to the rest, if anything could prove a hin- 
drance to men in the attainment of grace, much rather might those be 
hindered whose maturer year ; have involved them in heavy sins. But 
if even the chief of sinners, who have been exceedingly guilty before 
God, receive the forgiveness of sins on coming to the faith, and no 
one is precluded from baptism and from grace, how much less should 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 437 

the child be kept back, which, as it is but just born, can not have 
sinned, but has only brought with it, by its descent from Adam, the 
infection of the old death; and which may the more easily obtain the 
remission of sins, because the sins which are forgiven it are not its 
own, but those of another." 

So reasons Cyprian. The subject will be continued. 



ORIGIN OF INFANT BAPTISM. 



That infant baptism never originated in the teaching 
of the apostles, and that not even a hint is thrown out 
in the New Testament in regard to it, is made particu- 
larly manifest by the fact that, just as soon as the prac- 
tice was foisted upon the churches in the latter part of 
the second century, it at once encountered vigorous and 
persistent opposition In modern times it is conceded 
by all intelligent and unbigoted persons, that infant bap- 
tism originated in tradition long after the age of the 
apostles, and that it has no foundation whatever in the 
Holy Scriptures. We continue the history and the 
controversy on infant baptism as narrated by Neander. 

In the Alexandrian Church, also, which, in respect to its whole the- 
ological and dogmatic direction of mind, was so essentially distin- 
guished from the Church of North Africa, we find prevailing, even at 
a somewhat earlier period, the doctrine of the necessity of infant bap- 
tism Origen, in whose system infant baptism could readily find its 
place,* though not in the same connection as in the system of the 
North African Church, declares it to be an apostolical tradition ;f an 
expression, by the way, which can not be regarded as of much weight 
in this age, when the inclination was so strong to trace every institution, which 
was considered of special importance, to the apostles [italics ours] ; and 

*Namely, in its relation to his theory, that human souls are fallen 
heavenly essences, and are to be cleansed from a guilt which they 
brought with them. 

fThis, expressly in the fifth book of his "Commentary on the Epis- 
tle to the Romans," according to the Latin translation of Rufinus. In 
Origen's time, too, difficulties were still urged against infant baptism, 
similar to those thrown out by Tertullian. Compare his Homil. xiv., 
in Lucan (according to the translation of Jerome). 

(438) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 439 

when so many walls of separation, hindering the freedom of prospect, 
had already been set up between this and the apostolic age. Also in 
the Persian Church infant baptism was, in the course of the third cen- 
tury, so generally recognized, that the sect founder, Mani, thought he 
could draw an argument from it in favor of a doctrine which seemed 
to him necessarily presupposed by this application of the rite. 

But if the necessity of infant baptism was acknowledged in theory, 
it was still far from being uniformly recognized in practice. Nor was 
it always from the purest motives that men were induced to put off 
their baptism. Precisely the same false notion of baptism as an opus 
operatum [a mere outward work], which had moved some to consider 
the baptism of infants so unconditionally necessary, led many others, 
who mistook, indeed, in a far grosser and more dangerous manner, the 
nature of this rite, to delay their baptism, that they might, in the 
meantime, the more freely abandon themselves to their lusts, and yet, 
cleansed in the hour of death by the magical annihilation of their sins, 
be able to pass without hindrance into eternal life. We have already 
noticed the pious indignation and force with which Tertullian, who 
was otherwise opposed to haste in baptism, combated this error. 

Infant baptism, also, furnished probably the first occasion for the 
appointment of sponsors or godfathers ; for as this was a case in which 
the persons baptized could not themselves declare their confession of 
faith and the required renunciation, it became necessary for others to 
do it in their name ; and these at the same time engaged to take care 
that the children should be rightly instructed in Christianity, and 
trained up in a life corresponding to the vows given at baptism ; hence 
they were called sponsors (sponsores). Tertullian adds to his other 
arguments against infant baptism, that these sponsors were obliged to 
assume an obligation which they might be prevented from fulfilling, 
either by their own death or by the untoward conduct of the child. 

The reader will understand that Neander himself was 
a pedobaptist, and that he practiced sprinkling; and, 
surprising as it may appear, in direct opposition to his. 
own historical statements, backed by the incontrovert- 
ible testimony of the times, lie adopts these traditions, 
and practices rites unsupported by the Word of God. 
How a man can be a truthful historian and a misguided 
ecclesiastic at one and the same time, is one of the inex- 



44° ORIGIN OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

plicable questions of the times which we can not solve 
on rational principles. Such a man has not yet been 
fully released from the mists of mystic Babylon. The 
nature of the controversy which was carried on in the 
second and third centuries gives corroborative proof of 
the fact that the apostles were recognized as having 
preached baptism for the remission of sins, as the con- 
summating- act in the production of the new spiritual 
life. S me went so far as to insist on trine immersion, 
which was the extreme of the doctrine of infant baptism, 
with which no free act or moral act was connected. 
Neander proceeds to say that — 

With the act of baptism, several symbolical customs were united, 
which flowed from the idea of this transaction, and in which this idea 
was to be represented to the senses. Thus it came about that, as the 
participation of the universal priesthood of all the faithful was consid- 
ered as necessarily -united with the introduction to the fellowship of 
Christians, so the symbol of priestly consecration was made to follow 
the act of baptism. As. in the Old Testament, anointing was the sign 
of consecration to the priestly office ; so oi 1 , which had been blessed 
expressly for this purpose, was applied to the newly baptized, as a sign 
of consecration to this spiritual priesthood. We first meet with this 
custom in Tertullian, and in Cyprian it appears already to constitute 
an essential part of the rite of baptism. 

In a foot-note, Neander says concerning Cyprian : — 

Yet in the book De Corona Jlilet, c. 2, where he describes the usages 
in baptism which were derived, not from Scripture, but from ecclesias- 
tical tradition, he makes no mention of this unction. The imposition 
of hands, accompanied by prayer, with which the act of baptism wns 
concluded, is, beyond doubt, a still older custom. The sign of the 
imposition of hands {eni-&eoiQ rov x £ <-P 0V x EL P°^ iaia ) was the common 
token of religious consecration, borrowed from the Jews [but not from 
the apostles], and em doyed on various occasions, either to denote con- 
secration to the Christian calling in general, or to the particular 
branches of it. The apostles, or presiding officers of the church, lay- 
ing their hands on the head of the baptized individual, called upon 
the Lord to bestow his blessing on the holy transaction now completed, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 44-1 

to cause to be filled in him whatever was implied in it, to consecrate 
him with his Spirit for the Christian calling, and to pour out his Spirit 
upon him. This closing rite was» inseparably connected with the 
whole rite of baptism. 

All, indeed, had reference here to the same principal thing, without 
which no one could be a Christian — the birth to a new life from God, 
the baptism of the Spirit, which was symbolically represented by the 
baptism of water. Tertullian still considers this transaction and bap- 
tism as one whole, belonging together ; although he distinguishes in it 
the two separate moments, the negative and the positive, the forgive- 
ness of sin and cleansing from sin, which was mediated by baptism in 
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the impartation of 
the Holy Spirit following thereupon, upon the individual now restored 
to the original state of innocence, to which impartation the imposition 
of hands refers.* 

But now, since the idea had sprung up of a spiritual character 
belonging exclusively to the bishops, or successors of the apostles, and 
communicated to them by ordination; on which character the propa- 
gation of the Holy Spirit in the Church was dependent, it was consid- 
ered as their prerogative to seal, by this consecration of the imposition 
of hands, the whole act of baptism ; (hence the rite was called signacu- 
lurn, G(f>paytg). It was supposed that a good and valid reason could be 
drawn from the fact that the Samaritans, baptized by a deacon, were 
first endowed with spiritual gifts by the imposition of the hands of the 
apostles, which was added afterward (Acts xix.), as this passage was 
then understood. So now the presbyters, and, in case of necessity, 
even the deacons, were empowered to baptize, but the bishops only 
were authorized to consummate that second holy act. This notion had 
been formed so early as the middle of the third century. The bishops 
were under the necessity, therefore, of occasionally going through 
their dioceses in order to administer to those who had been baptized 
by their subordinates, the country presbyters, the rite which was after- 



*De Baptismo, c 8 : Dehinc rnanus irnponitur per benedictionem, 
advocans et invitans Spiritum sanctum. He names together, de res 
earn., c. 8, in connection with baptism, all the three things which 
afterward, separated from it and combined together in one whole, con- 
stituted in the Roman Church the sacrament of confirmation : the 
unction, conveying with it the consecration of the soul ; the signing 
with the cross, conveying with it protection from evil : the imposition 
of hands, the illuminatio spiritus. 



44 2 ORIGIN OF INFANT BAPTISM. 

ward denominated confirmation. [A rite never instituted by the 
apostles of Jt-sus Christ — Author.] In ordinary cases, where the 
bishop himself administered the baptism, both were still united together 
as one whole, and thus constituted the complete act of baptism. 
After all this had been performed, in many of the churches — in 
those, for instance, of North Africa and Alexandria — there was given 
to the person newly baptized a mixture of milk and honey, as a symbol 
of filiation into the new life, and as a spiritual application of the 
promise concerning the land flowing with milk and honey, to that 
heavenly country, with all its blessed privileges, to which the baptized 
belonged. He was then received into the church by the first kiss of 
Christian brotherhood, the salutation of peace, of that peace with God 
which he now participated in in common with all Christians ; and from 
henceforth he had the right of saluting all Christians with this fra- 
ternal sign. But Clement of Alexandria had already to complain that 
this brotherly kiss, originally a natural expression of Christian feeling, 
was become an opm operation — a thing of conscious display, by which 
the suspicion of the heathen was excited. His objection to it is, that 
love evinces itself, not in the brotherly kiss, but in the disposition of 
the heart.* 

C Augustine is the originator of the doctrine of " orig- 
inal sin," or "total hereditary depravity." He flour- 
ished in the fourth century.") His postulates from his 
reasoning process are these: (The whole human family 
is totally depraved, by virtue of the first trangression. 
Infants are totally depraved because they are constitu 
ent parts of the human family. But, inasmuch as they 
can neither think, nor reason, nor believe, nor exercise 
any sort of freedom of will, something must be done to 
wipe out the stain of original sin. )The act of baptism 
is the regenerating act, in his speculative theology, that 
removes from the soul of the infant the stain of original 
sin ! 1 Here is where the doctrine of baptismal regenera- 
tion is fully set forth, which, after the lapse of many 



*Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. i., 
•>P. 314-317. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 443 

centuries, was taken up and revamped by John Calvin, 
adopted by his ecclesiastical compeers, and in subse- 
quent years preached by John Wesley, and published 
in his Doctrinal Tracts, which, in later editions, without 
his knowledge or consent, has been erased by a com- 
mittee of Episcopal Methodists ; by order of the Gen- 
eral Conference, we suppose. 



VALIDITY OF BAPTISM. 



Consequent upon the introduction of infant baptism 
in the latter part of the second century, there sprang up 
in the latter part of the third century hot and animated 
disputations on the validity of baptism ; on the one side, 
under the leadership of Bishop Stephanus, of Rome, 
and, on the other side, under the leadership of Cyprian, 
of Carthage. It is only necessary to give the results of 
these. discuss : ons, without going into historical and the- 
ological detail. Here, where innovations began to creep 
into the congregations of Christ, and where the teaching 
of the apostles began to be perverted, " theologians" — 
scholastics — begin to use such terms as " objective valid- 
ity " and " subjective validity," "external form" and 
"inward grace" — terms of speech never used by the 
apostles, and the tendency of which never fails to con- 
fuse and perplex the common mind. 

There were two points in dispute. In respect to the 
first, the Roman party maintained that the validity of 
baptism depended simply upon its being administered 
as instituted by Christ. The formula of baptism, in 
particular, gave to it its objective validity ; it mattered not 
what was the subjective character of the priest, who 
served merely as an instrument in the transaction; it 
was of no consequence where the baptism was adminis- 
tered.' That which is objectively divine in the transac- 
tion could evince its power, the grace of God could thus 

(444) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 445 

operate through the objective symbol, if it but found in 
the person baptized a recipient soul ; that person could 
receive the grace of baptism, wherever he might be bap- 
tized, through his own faith, and through his own dis- 
position of heart. But Cyprian brings against his 
opponents a charge of inconsistency, from which they 
could not easily defend themselves. He reasoned that 
if the baptism of heretics (such, for instance, as the 
Gnostics and Montanists) possessed an objective validity, 
then, for the same reason, their confirmation must also 
possess an objective validity. ' • For (says Cyprian) if 
a person born out of the Church (namely, to the new 
life) may become a temple of God, why may not the 
Holy Spirit be poured out on this temple? He who 
has put off sin in baptism, and become sanctified, spirit- 
ually transformed into a new man, is capable of receiv- 
ing the Holy Spirit. The apostle says: ' As many of 
you as are baptized [into Christ], have put on Christ.' 
It follows, then, that he who may put on Christ when 
baptized by heretics, can much more receive the Holy 
Spirit which Christ has sent ; as if Christ could be put 
on without the Spirit, or the Spirit could be separated 
from Christ." 

On the other hand, the other party held that no bap- 
tism could be valid unless administered in the true 
church, where alone the efficacious influence of the Holy 
Spirit is exerted. If by this was understood merely an 
outward being in the Church, an outward connection 
with it, the decision of the question would be easy. 
But what Cyprian really meant here (says Neander) was 
an inward subjective connection with the true church by 
faith and disposition of heart. He took it for granted 



446 VALIDITY OF BAPTISM. 

that the officiating priest himself, by virtue of his faith, 
must be an organ of the Holy Spirit, and enabled by 
the magical influence of his priestly office, duly to .per- 
form the sacramental acts ; to communicate, for example, 
to the water its supernatural, sanctifying power. But 
when the matter took this shape — was made thus to 
depend on the subjective character of the priest — it 
became difficult, in many cases, to decide as to the valid- 
ity of a baptism, which must be the occasion of much 
perplexity and doubt ; for who could look into the heart 
of the officiating priest? 

But we are told the Roman party went still further in 
their defense of the objective significancy of the formula 
of baptism. Even the baptism where the complete 
form was not employed, but administered simply in the 
name of Christ, they declared to be objectively valid. 
Cyprian maintained, on the contrary, that the formula 
of baptism had no longer significancy when not in the 
full form instituted by Christ. ' ''We perceive here," 
says Neander, "the more liberal Christian spirit of the 
anti-Cyprian party. The thought hovered vaguely 
before their minds that everything that pertains to 
Christianity is properly embraced in the faith in Christ." 
Cyprian himself, however, did not venture to limit 
God's grace by such outward things in cases where con- 
verted heretics had already been admitted without a 
new baptism, and had enjoyed the fellowship of. the 
Church, or died in it. " God," he observes, " is great 
in his mercy, to show indulgence, and not exclude from 
the benefits of the Church those who have been received 
into it formally, and thus fallen asleep." A remarkable 
case of this sort is narrated by Dionysius, of Alexandria : 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 447 

There was in the church of Alexandria a converted heretic who 
lived as a member of the church for many years, and participated in 
the various acts of worship. Happening once to be present at a bap- 
tism of catechumens, he remembered that the baptism which he himself 
had received in the sect from which he was converted, probably a 
Gnostic sect, bore no resemblance whatever to the one he now wit- 
nessed. Had he been aware that whoever possesses Christ in faith, 
possesses all that is necessary to his growth in grace, and to the salva- 
tion of his soul, this circumstance could not have given him so much 
uneasiness. But as this was not so clear to him, he doubted as to his 
title to consider himself a real Christian, and fell into the greatest 
distress and anxiety, believing himself to be without baptism and the 
grace by baptism. In tears he threw himself at the bishop's feet and 
besought him for baptism. The bishop endeavored to quiet his fears ; 
he assured him that he could not, at this late period, after he had so 
long partaken of the body and blood of the Lord, be baptized anew. 
It was sufficient that he had lived so long a time in the fellowship of 
the church, and all he had to do was to approach the Holy Supper 
with unwavering faith and a good conscience. But the disquieted 
man found it impossible to overcome his scruples and regain his tran- 
quillity. 

We are informed that in the North African Church 
men willingly followed, for the most part, the example 
of the Mother Church at Rome, but were at the same 
time far from submitting their own judgment to the 
authority of that Church. At a council held in Car- 
thage, over which the Bishop Agrippinus presided, 
seventy bishops of North Africa declared themselves for 
the opposite opinion. Yet neither party was disposed 
as yet to obtrude its own views and practices on the 
other. The churches which differed on this point in no 
case dissolved the bond of fraternal harmony on account 
of a disagreement w ' which so little concerned the essen- 
tials of Christianity." But here, again, it was a Roman 
bishop, Stephanus, who, instigated by the spirit of 
ecclesiastical arrogance, domination, and zeal without 



44$ VALIDITY OF BAPTISM. 

knowledge, attached to this point of dispute a para- 
mount importance. Hence, toward the close of the 
year 253, he issued a sentence of excommunication 
against the bishops of Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Galatia 
and Cilicia, stigmatizing them as "anabaptists" (ai/ajHasr- 
zearai), a name, however, which they could justly affirm 
they did not deserve by their principles ; for it was not 
their wish to administer a second baptism to those who 
had already been baptized, but they contended that the 
previous baptism, given by heretics, could not be recog- 
nized as a true one. 

Any one conversant with the New Testament knows 
full well that the apostles knew nothing of such meta- 
physical terms as " objective validity " and "subjective 
condition of the soul." They preached " Christ and him 
crucified," without the thought of raising a question. 
They preached solely by the authority of Jesus Christ, 
without examining into remote causes anu direct effects. 
They did not trouble themselves with ultimate causes, 
nor did they pretend to know much about the subjective 
condition of the soul; but, under a divine commission, 
they preached the glad tidings of salvation to a world 
lying in sin and darkness, and, through the invitation of 
the glad tidings, urged sinners to forsake sin and return 
to God. They preached faith in Jesus Christ, repent- 
ance toward God. and baptism for the remission of sins. 
They preached positive obedience to Jesus Christ as 
Prophet, Priest and King, and did not preach degrees 
of obedience. They preached positive obedience to the 
Son of God. and not "the spirit of obedience" — a kind 
of preaching which has become very popular in modern 
times. But to return to the " form of baptism " again. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 449 

As to the form of baptism, Neander says: 

In respect to the form of baptism, it was, in conformity with the 
original institution and the original import of the symbol, performed 
by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of 
being entirely penetrated by the same. It was only with the sick, 
where the exigency required it, that any exception was made ; and in 
this case baptism was administered by sprinkling. 

That is to say, immersion was administered by sprink- 
ling, which, to say the least, is consummate nonsense. 
Neander continues his narrative : 

Many superstitious persons, clinging to the outward form, imagined 
that such baptism by sprinkling was not fully valid ; and hence they 
[not the inspired apostles, but innovators upon the divine plan — 
Author] distinguished those who had been so baptized by denomina- 
ting them the clinici* — i. e., those baptized upon beds. 

The first departure from the original mode is the case 
of Novatian, who, probably in the year 253, or there- 
about, had water poured upon his person in bed, 
according to the testimony of Eusebius.f Referring to 
the case of Novatian, Neander says: 

After his restoration from this demoniacal disease [a disease of the 
mind supposed to exist in that age], it is objected again, that he fell 
into a severe lit of sickness [which may be very naturally explained ; 
the crisis in his whole organic system, tor which he was indebted to 
the restoration from that frenzy-like condition, was the cause of his 
sickness], and that in the apprehension of death, he received baptism, 
but baptism only by sprinkling, as his condition required [the bapti<- 
mm clinicorum not being according to the usual practice of those times, 
by immersion], if it could be said, indeed, that such a one had been 
baptized at all 4 



*Neander's History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. i., p. 
310. 

fEusebius, p. 114. 

JNeander's History, etc., vol. i., note 2, p. 238. 

30 



450 VALIDITY OF BAPTISM. 

Neander was so well acquainted with the history of 
the Apostolic Church, and so well versed in Greek lit- 
erature and Greek philology, as to know beyond a doubt 
that sprinkling was an innovation upon the baptism or 
immersion ordained by the great Head of the Church. 
Why, then, exchange a certainty for an uncertainty? 
Why rest upon doubt when you can have the undoubted ? 



HISTORY OF SPRINKLING. 



We have previously shown, according to the testi- 
mony of the first church historian, Eusebius, that 
by the twelfth canon of the Council of Neo-Caesarea, 
the clinici, or those sprinkled upon sick-beds, were 
prohibited the priesthood. Referring to the word 
" be-sprinkled," Eusebius says: "This word pcrichu- 
thcis, Rufinus very well renders perfiisus, besprinkled; 
for people who were sick, and were baptized in their 
beds, could not be dipped in water by the priest, but 
were sprinkled with water by him. This baptism was 
thought imperfect, and not solemn, for several reasons. 
Also, they who were thus baptized were called after- 
ward clinici ; and by the twelfth canon of the Council of 
Neo-Caesarea, these clinici were prohibited the priest- 
hood." This fact of itself proves conclusively that the 
substitution of sprinkling for immersion was regarded 
as an innovation by the so-called u Church Fathers," or 
by those bishops or presbyters who immediately suc- 
ceeded the apostles. 

\ Dr. Win. Wall, of England, who was for fifty-two 
years (1676-1728) Vicar of Shoreham, Kent, and who, 
among other works, published one entitled Infant Bap- 
tism Asserted and Vindicated, and one entitled History 
of Infant Baptism, in Two Parts, and who therefore can 
not be suspected of any partiality for immersionists, 
gives such a history of sprinkling and pouring as must 
satisfy every candid and disinterested person, that these 

(45i) 



45 2 HISTORY OF SPRINKLING. 

innovations came into use by slow degrees and by sinu- 
ous methods, and only in some of the more western 
parts of the Western Latin Church, and that for full 
thirteen centuries the whole religious world practiced 
immersion, with the exception of invalids and pretend- 
ers of inability to endure cold bathing. • Bonaventure, 
in A. D. 1 1 60, alludes to sprinkling in France as becom- 
ing an ordinary practice. Likewise the Synod of 
Angiers, A. D. 1275, speaks of dipping and pouring as 
indifferent. The Synod of Aix, 1585, allowed pouring, 
or dipping or pouring, according to the usage of the 
Church, but commanded the water to be poured out of 
ladles. 

The innovation made very little progress in Italy, 
or in Germany, or in Spain, until the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries. Erasmus, who spent some time in 
England during the reign of Henry VIII., observes: 
"With us [the Germans] people have the water poured 
on them. In England they are dipped." In his col- 
loquy entitled IcJi Thus Pkagia, supposed to have been 
written in England, he represents infants as "dipped all 
over in cold water, soon after birth, and that, too, in a 
stone font." Wickliffe thought it immaterial whether 
they be dipped once, or thrice, or have water poured 
upon their heads, according to the custom of the 
church to which they happen to belong. The Mamiale 
ad Usinn Savum, printed in 1530, the twenty-first year 
of Henry VIII. , orders, "Let the priest baptize him 
[the candidate] by dipping him in the water thrice." 
So decrees the Common Prayer-book of Edward VI., 
1549, which says, "The priest shall dip it in the water 
thrice." Edward himself was immersed: so was Queen 
Elizabeth. So are many of the Church of England at 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS, 453 

the present day, both in Europe and America. Immer- 
sion continued during Queen Mary's reign. Watson, 
a Papist bishop, in 1558, the last of the Queen's reign, 
published a volume on the sacraments, in which he 
says: "Though the old ancient tradition of the Church 
has. been from the beginning to dip the child three 
times, it is sufficient. " So think many now, who have 
more regard for tradition than they have love for the 
Word of God. But now let us hear Wall: 

It being allowed to weak children (though strong enough to be 
brought to church) to be baptized by affusion, many fond ladies and 
gentlewomen first, and then by degrees the common people, would 
obtain the favor of the priest to have their children pass for weak 
children x too tender to endure dipping in the water. " Especially," 
as Mr. Walker observes, "if some instances really were, or were but 
fancied and framed, of some child taking cold or being otherwise 
prejudiced by its being dipped." 

And another thing that had a greater influence than this was, that 
many of our English divines and oiher people had, during Queen 
Mary's bloody reign, fled into Germany, Switzerland, etc.; and coming 
back in Queen Elizabeth's time, they brought with them a great love 
to the customs of those Protestant churches wherein they had 
sojourned : and especially the authority of Calvin, and the rules 
which he had established at Geneva, had a mighty influence on a great 
number of our people about that time. Now Calvin had not only 
given his dictate in his Institutes, that "the difference is of no 
moment, whether he that is baptized be dipped all over ; and if so, 
whether thrice or once; or whether he be only wetted with t'ie water 
poured on him ;" but he had also drawn up for the use of his church 
at Geneva (and afterward published to the world), a form of adminis- 
tering the sacrament, where, when he comes to order the act of bap- 
tizing, he words it thus: "Then the minister of baptism pours water 
on the infant, saying, 'I baptize thee,' etc." There have been, as I 
said, some synods in some dioceses in France that have spoken of affu- 
sion without mentioning immersion at all ; that being the common 
practice ; but for an office or liturgy of any church, this is, I believe, 
the first in the world that prescribes affusion absolutely. Then Muscu- 
lus had determined — "As for dipping of t!ie infant, we judge that not 
so necessary ; but that it is free for the church to baptize either by 



454 HISTORY OF SPRINKLING. 

dipping or sprinkling." So that (as Mr. Walker observes) no wonder 
if that custom prevailed at home, which our reformed divines in the 
time of the Marian persecution had found to be the judgment of other 
divines, and seen to be the practice of other churches abroad; and 
especially of Mr. Calvin and his church at Geneva. 

And when there was added to all this the resolution of such a man 
as Dr. Whitakcr, Religious Professor at Cambridge: "Though in case 
of grown persons that are in health I think dipping to be better; yet 
in the case of infants and of sickly people, I think sprinkling suffi- 
cient; " the inclination of the people, backed with these authorities, 
carried the practice against the rubric,* which still required dipping, 
except in case of weakness. So that in the latter times of Queen 
Elizabeth, and during the reigns of King James and King Charles I. 
very few children were dipped in the font. 

In regard to the us< of basins, Dr. Wall remarks: 

The use was, the minister continuing in his reading-desk, the child 
was brought and held below him ; and there was placed for that use a 
little basin of water, about the bigness Of a syllabub-pot, into which 
the minister dipping his fingers, aad then holding his hand over the 
face of the child, some drops would fall from his fingers on the child's 
face. For the Directory says it is "not only lawful, but most expedi- 
ent," to use pouring or sprinkling. 

It is to be observed that not one word of the Scrip- 
tures is quoted by Dr. Wall in support of this "expedi- 
ent," nor is the lawfulness of it found anywhere except 
in human directories. The same distinguished author 
informs us how the Church of England, which origin- 
ated in the sixteenth century, under the supervision of 
Henry VIII., came to change the practice. He says: 

Upon the review of the Common Prayer-book, at the Restoration, 
the Church of England did not think fit (however prevalent the custom 
of sprinkling was) to forego this maxim — that it is most fitting to dip 
children that are well able to bear it. But tiiey leave it wholly to the 
judgment of the godfathers and those who bring the child, whether 
the child may well endure dipping or not; as they are, indeed, the 
most proper judges of that. So the priest is now ordered, "If the 
godfathers do certify him that the child may well endure it, to dip it 
in the water discreetly and warily. But, if they certify the child is 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 455 

weak, it shall suffice to pour water upon it.'' The difference is only 
this : by the rubric, as it stood before, the priest was to dip, unless 
there was an allegation of weakness. Now, he is not to dip unless 
there be an averment or certifying of strength sufficient to endure it. 

This does not read very apostolic; nevertheless, it 
passes for gospel in modern times Turn over the 
pages of the New Testament, especially the Acts of 
Apostles, which contains a history of the preaching of 
the apostles, and there discover, if you can, where an 
apostle or anybody else ever ordered that a child, or an 
adult, should be dipped into water "discreetly and 
warily." Where do you read about "godfathers" and 
the certification of godfathers in the New Testament, or 
even in the Old Testament? Among the most dis- 
tinguished men of the Church of England who, in Dr. 
Wall's time, or before his time, contended for immer- 
sion, are Scotus, Mede, Bishop Taylor, Dan Rogers, Sir 
Norton Knatchbull, Walker, Towerson, Whitby, Dr. 
Cave, et al Here are the words of some of these illus- 
trious theologians: 

Scotus — " Baptism ought to be given by dipping; so as that it is not 
lawful to give it otherwise, unless for some necessary or creditable and 
reasonable cause." 

Vasquez says of sprinkling: 

That it is not at all in use, and so can not be practiced without sin, 
unless for soma particular cause. 

Mede — "There was no such thing as sprinkling, or rantismos, used 
in baptism in the apostles' times, nor many ages alter them."' 

Knatchbull — " With leave be it spoken, I am still of opinion that 
it would be more for the honor of the Church, and for the (peace and) 
security of religion, if the old custom could conveniently be restored." 

Dr. Whitby — "It were to be wished that this custom (of immersion) 
might be again of general use." 

Dr. Cave — "The almost constant and universal custom of the primi- 
tive times." 



45^ HISTORY OF SPRINKLING. 

Dr. Towerson, as a churchman, after reciting the 
arguments in favor of immersion, is candid enough, in 
his explication, to make the following remarkable con- 
cession : 

How to take off the force of these arguments altogether is a thing 
I mean not to consider; partly because our Church seems to persuade 
such an immersion, and partly because I can not but think the fore- 
mentioned arguments to be so far of force as to evince the necessity' 
thereof, where there is not some greater necessity to occasion an alter- 
ation of it. 

As to the introduction and progress of sprinkling, - 
the Edinburgh Cyclopaedia gives the following account: 

The first law of sprinkling was obtained in the following manner: 
Pope Stephen II., being driven from Rome by Adolphus, King of the 
Lombards, in 753, fled to Pepin, who, a short time before, had usurped 
the crown of France. Whilst he remained there, the monks of Cressy, 
in Britany, consulted him whether, in case of necessity, baptism 
poured on the head of the infant would be lawful. Stephen replied 
that it would But though the truth of this fact be allowed — which, 
however, som ■ Catholics deny — yet pouring or sprinkling was admitted 
only in cases of necessity. It was not till the year 131.1 that the legis- 
lature, in a council held at Ravenna, declared immersion or sprinkling 
to be indifferent. In Scotland, however, sprinkling was never prac- 
ticed in ordinary cases till after the Reformation (about the middle of 
the sixteenth century). From Scotland it mado its way into England 
in the reign of Elizabeth, but was not authorized in the Established 
Church {Article on Baptism). 

We shall next give a history of the introduction of 
sprinkling and pouring into England, Scotland, and 
finally into America. That infant baptism and sprink- 
ling are sinful and inexcusable innovations upon the 
ancient order of things, are facts that are not only made 
manifest by the absolute silence of the Scriptures, but 
facts that are made doubly manifest by the apologies 
and excuses of the innovators, as well as by those who 
support the innovators. 



HISTORY OF SPRINKLING CONTINUED. 



We continue the history of sprinkling, according to 
the elaborate testimony of Dr. Wall, one of the most 
able and erudite writers of the pedobaptist side of the 
house. He devoted four quarto volumes to this subject. 
We quote: 

France seems to have been' the first country in the world where bap- 
tism by affusion was used ordinarily to persons in health, and in the 
public way of administering it. They [the assembly of divines at 
Westminster] reformed the font into a basin. This learned assembly 
could not remember that fonts to baptize in had been always used by 
the primitive Christians long before the beginning of Popery, and 
ever since churches were built; but that sprinkling for the common 
use of baptizing was really introduced (in France first, and then in 
other Popish countries) in times of Popery. And that accordingly, 
all those countries in which the usurped power of the Pope- is, or has 
formerly "been, owned, have left off dipping of children in the font: 
but that all other countries in the world, which had never regarded 
his authority, do still use it: and that basins, except in case of neces- 
sity, were never used by Papists, or any other Christians whatsoever, 
till by themselves. What has been said of this custom of pouring or 
sprinkling water in the ordinary use of baptism, is to be understood 
only in reference to these western parts of Europe; for it is used 
ordinarily nowhere else. The Greek Church, in all the branches of 
it, does still usj immersion ; and they hardly count a child, except in 
ease of sickness, well baptized without it. And so do all other Chris- 
tians in the world except the Latins. That which I hinted before, is 
a rule that does not fail in any particular that I know of, viz.: All the 
nations of Christians that do now, or formerly did, submit to the 
authority of the bishop of Rome, do ordinarily baptize their infants 
by pouring or sprinkling ; and though the English received not this 
custom till after the decay of Popery, yet they have sines received it 
from such neighboring nations as had begun in the time of the Pope's 

(457) 



I 



45 S HISTORY OF SPRINKLING CONTINUED. 

power. But all other Christians in the world, who never owned the 
Pope's usurped power, do, and ever did, dip their infants in the 
ordinary use {History of Infant Baptism, Part II., chap. ix.). 

Bishop Burnet's reason for the change is thus 
expressed: "The danger of dipping" in cold climates 
may be a very good reason for changing the form of 
baptism to sprinkling" (vol. iv. , p. 162). Bishop 
Burnet was a member of the Church of England. As 
we intend thorough work in the investigation of this 
subject, and as we desire our readers to have the full 
benefit of the testimony of the most prominent pedo- 
baptist authorities, we quote Dr. Wall's argument on 
the necessity of a return from sprinkling to dipping, as 
he argued on various occasions: 

That our climate is no colder than it was for those thirteen or four- 
teen hundred years from the beginning of Christianity here to Queen 
Elizabeth's time; and not near so cold as Muscovy, and some other 
countries, where they do still dip their children in baptism, and find 
no inconvenience in it. 

That the apparent reason that altered the custom was, not the cold- 
ness of the climate, but the imitation of Calvin and the Church of 
Geneva, and some others thereabout. 

That our reformers and compilers of the liturgy (even of the last 
edition of it) were of another mind. As appears both by the express 
order of the rubric itself, and by the prayer just used before baptism, 
"Sanctify this water," etc., "and grant that this child to be baptiz; d 
therein," etc; (if they had meant that pouring should have always, or 
most ordinarily, have been used, they would have said therewith;) and 
by the definition given in the catechism of the outward visible sign in 
baptism: '' Water wherein the person is baptized; " \ know that in one 
edition it was said, " Is dipped or sprinkled with it." I know not the 
history of that edition; but as it is a late one, so it was not thought tit 
to be continued. The old edition had the prayer before said in these 
words, "baptized in this water." 

That if it bo the coldness of the air that is feared; a child brought 
in loose blankets, that may be presently put off and on, need be no 
longer naked, or very little longer, than at its ordinary dressing and 
undressing; not a quarter or sixth part of a minute. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 459 

If the coldness of the water, there is no reason, from the nature of 
the thing; no order or command of God or man, that it should be used 
cold; but as the waters in which our Savior and the primitive Chris- 
tians, in those hot countries which the Scripture mentions, were bap- 
tized, were naturally warm by reason of the climate, so if ours be 
made warm, they will be the liker to them As the inward and main 
part of baptism is God's washing and sanctifying the soul, so the out- 
ward symbol is the washing of the body, which is as naturally done by 
warm water as cold. It may, I suppose, be used in such a degree of 
warmth as the parents desire. 

As to those of the clergy who are satisfied themselves, and do in 
their own minds and opinions approve of the directions of the liturgy, 
and would willingly bring their people to the use of it, it is too 
apparent what difficulty lies in the way. So that this quarreler has no 
ground in his assuming way to demand "why they do continue," etc. 

The difficulty of breaking any custom which has got possession 
among the body of the people (though that custom be but of two or 
three generations), is known and obvious. And there being a neces- 
sity of leaving it to the parents' judgment whether their child may 
well endure dipping or not, they are very apt to think or say not; and 
there is no help for it. For none, I think, will pretend that the min- 
ister should determine that, and dip the child whether they will or 
not He can but give his opinion : the judgment must be theirs ; and 
they are for doing as h is been of late usual. But there are, besides 
this general, two particular obstacles, which it may be tit to mention : 

1. One is, from that part of the people in any parish who are Pres- 
byterianly inclined. As the Puritan party brought in this alteration, 
so they are very tenacious of it; and as in other church matters, so in 
this particularly, they seem to have a settled antipathy against the 
retrieving of the ancient customs. Calvin was, I think, (as I said in 
my book) the first in the world that drew a form of liturgy that pre- 
scribed pouring water on the infant, absolutely, without saying any- 
thing of dipping, it was (as Mr. Walker has shown) his admirers in 
England, who, in Queen Elizabeth's time, brought pouring in ordinary 
use, which before was used only to weak children. But the succeed- 
ing Presbyterians in England, about the year 1644 (when their reign 
began) went farther yet from the ancient way, and instead of pouring, 
brought into use in many places sprinkling : declaring at the same 
time against all use of fonts, baptisteries, godfathers, or anything that 
looked like the ancient way of baptizing. And as they brought the 
use of the other sacrament to a great and shameful infrequeney (which 



46O HISTORY OF SPRINKLING CONTINUED. 

it is found difficult to this day to reform), so they brought this of bap- 
tism into a great disregard. Now I say, a minister in a parish, where 
there are any considerable number inclined this way, will find in them 
a great aversion to this order of the rubric. They are hardly pre- 
vailed on to leave off that scandalous custom of having their children, 
though never so well, baptized out of a basin or porringer in a bed- 
chamber ; hardly persuaded to bring them to church ; much further 
from having them dipped, though never so able to endure it. 

2 Another struggle will be with the midwives and nurses, etc. 
These will use all the interest they have with the mothers (which is 
very great) to dissuade them from agreeing to the dipping of the 
child. I know no particular reason unless it be this : A thing which 
they value themselvv^ and their skill much upon is, the neat dressing 
of the child on the christening day; the setting all the trimmings, the 
pins and the laces in the right order. And if the child be brought in 
loose clothes, which presently may be taken off for the baptism, and 
put on again, this pride is lost. And this makes a reason. So little 
is the solemnity of the sacrament regarded by many, who mind noth- 
ing but the dress and the eating and drinking. But the minister must 
endeavor to prevail with some of his people who have the most regard 
for religion, and possibly their example may bring in the rest. 

We could quote much more from this author, but 
this will suffice. What further need have we of proof? 
Here is a pedobaptist witness who testifies to the intro 
duction of an innovation upon the divine order as 
unscriptural as the doctrine of transubstantiation, auric- 
ular confession, purgatory, celibacy, or the worship of 
images Dr. Wall declares that "the custom is of 
but two or three generations" duration, and that the 
change was made "in imitation of Calvin and the 
church of Geneva." He ca'ls immersion the "ancient 
way," the "ancient custom," "the ancient way of bap- 
tizing," etc. He says tl they [of Queen Elizabeth's time, 
when Presbyterianism became predominant] brought 
this of baptism into great disregaj'd." Sprinkling he 
terms a " scandalous custom " Episcopalians, as we 
understand their teaching, do not practice sprinkling, 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 46 1 

but they practice pouring upon the heads of infants. 
Why their tirade against sprinkling, when pouring is 
just as unscriptural and as unauthorized as sprinkling? 
We challenge the world to show where, either in the 
Old or in the New Testament, the sprinkling or pouring 
of unmixed water upon the head of a person ever 
stood connected, in any sense, with the salvation of a 
soul. He who attempts this thing will find his infer- 
ences just as faint as his premises are vague and mean- 
ingless. 

The testimony is undeniably irrefragable, that for the 
space of thirteen hundred years from the apostolic age, 
immersion was universally practiced, with very rare 
exceptions, as we have already shown. Since that 
time, license was granted first by the Pope, in 131 1, to 
practice affusion with the authority of the Church. 
Calvin next gave a law to the Presbyterian Church 
authorizing the same unscriptural custom. This was 
conveyed first into Scotland, and then into England, 
after the reign of bloodthirsty Queen Mary. It was 
finally imposed upon the people, much against their 
own conviction and inclination in the beginning. In the 
course of time the people yielded to the inevitable and 
received the ecclesiastical yoke. The following comical 
law once prevailed in the Commonwealth of Virginia : 



Copy of a Law found in Henning's Statutes at Large, Vol. 2, 
page 165, December, 1662, 14th, Charles II. 

Article III — Against persons that refuse to have their children 
baptized. 

Whereas, Many schismatical persons, out of their averseness to the 
orthodox established religion, or out of the new-fangled conceits of 
their own heretical inventions, refuse to have their children baptized ; 

Be it therefore enacted by the authority of the aforesaid, that all persons 
that, in contempt of the divine sacrament of baptism, shall refuse, 



462 HISTORY OF SPRINKLING CONTINUED. 

when they may carry their child to a lawful minister in that county, 
to have them baptized, shall be amerced (iined) in two thousand 
pounds of tobacco — halfe to the informer, and halfe to the publique. 

Tobacco, at that time, was legal tender. The subject 
is less tender than it used to be. 



HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM CONTINUED. 



That the New Testament is absolutely silent as 
respects infant baptism, is demonstrated beyond the 
shadow of a doubt by the concurrent testimony of the 
great majority of the most eminent pedobaptist writers 
of modern times. We are entirely willing to rest the 
denial of infant baptism upon the admissio.ns of pedo- 
baptists themselves; without quoting one syllable from 
immersionists. Some of the reasons for practicing infant 
baptism will be found in the ' quotations which we make 
below. It will be noticed that no argument is offered, 
and that no Scripture is presented in support of the 
dogma ; but, on the contrary, it will be noticed that the 
sinful innovation is based entirely on the most remote 
inferences. 

CuitCELiiiEUS — "The custom of baptizing infants did not begin 
before the third age alter Christ was born. In the former ages no trace 
of it appears. ... It was introduced without the command of 
Christ, and, therefore, this rite (infant baptism) is observed by us as 
an ancient custom, but not as an apostolical tradition." 

Olshausen — "There is altogether wanting any conclusive proof- 
passage for the baptism of children, in the age of the apostles, nor can 
any necessity for it be deduced from the nature of baptism." 

Dr. Leonard Wood — Infant Baptism — " Whatever may have been 
the precepts of Christ, or of his apostles, to those who enjoyed their 
personal instructions, it is plain that there is no express precept 
respecting infant baptism in our sacred writings. The proof, then, 
that infant baptism is a divine institution, must be made ont in another 
way^ ... I can by no means admit, as I intimated in a previous 
lecture, that the New Testament docs not contain anything which 

(463) 



464 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM CONTINUED. 

fairly implies infant baptism. Still, it is evident that infant baptism 
U not introduced as a subject of particular discussion in the New Tes- 
tament ; that it is neither explicitly enjoined nor prohibited, and that 
neither the practice of baptizing children nor the absence of such a 
practice is expressly mentioned" (pp. 11 and 10-3). 
f Georg Eduakd Stutz, D.D.— (Schaff-Hertzog Encyclopedia — Arti- 
cle on Baptism) — " There is no trace of infant baptism in the New Testa- 
ment. All attempts to deduce it from the words of inspiration, or 
from such passages as J Cor. i. 1(3, must be given up as arbitrary..? 
Indeed, 1 Cor. vii. 14, ' For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in 
the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband ; else 
your children unclean, but now are they holy,' rules out decis- 
ively all such deductions; for, if pedobaptism were taught by Paul, 
he would have linked the salvation of the childreu with their baptism, 
and not with the faith of their parents. . . . Sponsors probably 
were unknown before the existence of infant baptism ; with them also 
came in a special liturgy. ... In the Early Church preparation 
preceded baptism. . . . Tertullian. Be Bapt., chap, xx., says: 
' They who are about to enter baptism ought to pray, . . . with 
the confession of bygone sins.' . . . Great emphasis was early laid 
upon baptism. It was the condition of salvation — it gave pardon of 
sin and imparted righteousness. . . . However correct may have 
been the views of the leaders of the Church, it is certain that the 
church-members entertained very erroneous notions. {They ascribed 
to baptism a magical efficacy, and particularly the cleansing from sin, 
entirely irrespective of the religious state of the recipient; indeed, 
from the beginning of the fourth century the sad custom too widely 
prevailed of postponing baptism as long as possible, even to the death 
hour, so that the recipient might continue his lax life, and by this one 
act get rid of all the past sins and enter heaven perfectly pure.^ . 
Baptism was considered indispensable to salvation. . . . Infant 
baptism came in quite naturally as the consequent of the belief in the 
necessity of baptism." 

Key. A. T. Bledsoe, D.D., LL.D. — "It is an article of our faith 
(Methodist Ej^copa:) that the baptism of young children (infants) is 
in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable to the 
institution of Chris'.. But yet, with all our searching, we have been 
unable to find in the New Testament a single express declaration 01 
word in favor of infant baptism.^ (We justify the rite, therefore, solely 
on the ground of logical inference, and not on any express word of 
Christ or his apostles. This may, perhaps, be deemed by some of our 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 465 

readers a strange position for a pedobaptist. It is, by no means, how- 
ever, a singular opinion. Hundreds of learned pedobaptists have 
come to the same conclusion, especially since the New Testament has 
been subjected to a closer, more conscientious, and more candid exe- 
gesis than was formerly practiced by controversialists../ (in Knapp's 
Theology, for example, it is said : ' There is no decisive example of 
this practice in the New Testament ; for it may be objected against 
those passages Avhere the baptism of the whole families is mentioned, 
(viz.: Acts x. 42-48. xvi. 15-33; 1 Cor. i. 16) that it is doubtful 
whether there were any children in those families, and if there were,, 
whether they were then baptized .\ From the passage Matt, xxviii. 19, 
it does not necessarily follow that Christ commanded infant baptism 
(the mathetemate is neither for nor against) ; nor does this follow any 
more from John iii. 5 and Mark x. 14-16. There is, therefore, no 
express command for infant baptism found in the New Testament, as 
Morus (p 2 ! 5 fT 12) justly concedes' (vol. ii., p. 524). £Dr. Jacob also 
says ' However reasonably we may be convinced that we find in the 
Christian Scriptures the fundamental idea from which infant baptism 
was afterward developed, and by which it may now be justified, it 
ought to be distinctly acknowledged that it is not an apostolic ordi- 
nance.^ (»In like manner, or to the same effect, Neander says : ' Origin- 
ally baptism was administered to adults ■ nor is the general spread of 
infant baptism, at a later period, any proof to the contrary; for even 
after infant baptism had been set forth as an apostolic institution, its 
introduction into the general practice of the Church was but slow>> 
*Had it rested on apostolic authority, there would have been a difficulty 
in explaining its late approval, and that, even in the third century, it 
was opposed by at least one eminent father of the Church >(p. 229).^ 
(■ " We quote this passage, not because its logic does, in every respect, 
carry conviction to our mind, but simply to show how completely 
Neander concedes the point, that infant baptism is not an apostolic 
ordinance. We might, if necessary, adduce the admission of many 
other profoundly learned pedobaptists that their doctrine is not found 
in the New Testament, either in express terms, or by implication from 
any portion of its language." — Southern Review, Vol. XIV^ 

Now let us hear from the renowned H. A. W. Meyer, 
Th. D., a celebrated expositor of the Bible, of the 
Lutheran Church, whose praise is everywhere spoken 
by the learned world, and a man whom his coadjutors 

31 



466 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM CONTINUED. 

delight to honor as the "prince of exegetes. 1 ' Com- 
menting on Acts xvi. 15, he says : 

Of what members her family (Lydia's) consisted can not be deter- 
mined. This passage and verse 00, with xviii. 8, 1 Cor. i. 16, are 
appealed to in order to prove infant baptism in the apostolic age, or at 
least to make it probable. . . . Bat on this question the following 
remarks are to be made : 

1. If, in the Jewish and Gentile families which were converted to 
Christ, there were children, their baptism is to be assumed in those 
cases when they were so far advanced that they could and did confess 
their faith on Jesus as the Messiah ; for this was the universal, abso- 
lutely necessary qualification for the reception of baptism. 

2. If, on the other hand, there were children still incapable of con- 
fessing, baptism could not be administered to those in whom that 
which was the necessary pre-supposition of baptism for Christian sanc- 
tification was still wanting. 

3. Such young children, whose parents were Christians, rather fell 
under the point of view of 1 Cor. vii. 14, according to which, in con- 
formity with the view of the Apostolic Church, the children of Chris- 
tians were no longer regarded as akuthartoi (unclean), but as hagaoi 
(holy), and that not on the footing of having received the character of 
holiness by baptism, but as having part in the Christian hagiotes by 
their fellowship with their Christian parents. . . . Besides, the 
circumcision of children must have been retained for a considerable 
time among the Jewish Christians, ace >rding to xxi. 21. Therefore, 

4. fThe baptism of the children of Christians, of which no trace is 
found in the Xew Testament, is not to be held as an apostolic ordi- 
nance, as, indeed, it encountered early and long resistance ; but it is 
an institution of the Church, which gradually arose in post-apostolic 
times, in connection with the development of ecclesiastical life and of 
doctrinal teaching, not certainly attested before Tertullian, and by him 
still decidedly opposed ; and, although already defended by Cyprian, 
only becoming general after the time of Augustine, in virtue of that 
connection. 3 Yet, even apart from the ecclesiastical premises of a 
stern doctrine of original sin, and of the devil, going beyond Scripture, 
from which even exorcism arose, the continued maintenance of infant 
baptism, as the objective attribution of spiritually creative grace in 
virtue of the plan of salvation established for every individual in the 
fellowship of the Church, is so much more justified, as this objective 
attribution takes place with a view to the future subjective appropria- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS 467 

tion. And this subjective appropriation has so necessarily to emerge 
with the development of self-consciousness and of knowledge through 
faith, that in default thereof the Church would have to recognize in 
the baptized no true members, but only membra mortua (dead members). 
This relation of connection witli creative grace, in so far as the Church 
is its sphere of operation, is a theme which, in presence of the attacks 
of Baptists and rationalists, must overstep the domain of exegesis, and 
be worked out in that of dogmatics, yet without the addition of con- 
firmation as any sort of supplement to baptism. 

Let us hear Dean Stanley, one of the great modern 
theological lights of the Church of England, whose hon- 
esty no pedobaptist will doubt, and whose statements 
no scholar will dispute. He says : 

^Another change is not so complete, but is perhaps more important. 
In the apostolic age, and in the three centuries which followed, it is 
evident that, as a general rule, those who came to baptism came in full 
age, and of their own deliberate choice. We find a few cases of the 
baptism of children ; in the third century we find one case of the bap- 
tism of infants.^ Even amongst Christian households the instances of 
Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Ephrem of Edessa, Augustine, 
Ambrose, are decisive proofs that it was not only not obligatory, but 
not usual. They had Christian parents, and yet they were not bap- 
tized till they reached maturity. (The liturgical service of baptism was 
framed etitirely for full-grown converts, and it is only by considerable 
adaptation applied to the case of infants. Gradually, however, the 
practice spread, and after the fifth century the whole Christian world, 
East and West, Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal and Presbyterian 
(with the single exception of the sect of the Baptists before mentioned), 
have baptized children in their infancy .) (Whereas, in the early ages, 
adult baptism was the rule, and infant baptism the exception ; in later 
times infant baptism is the rule, and adult baptism the exception. 
What is the justification of this almost universal departure from the 
primitive usage ?J There may have been many reasons, some bad, 
some good. 

( In his apology for infant baptism, Dean Stanley says : 
"The substitution of infant baptism for adult baptism, 
like the change from immersion to sprinkling, is thus a 
triumph of Christian charity." He should have said, 



468 HISTORY OF INFANT BAPTISM CONTINUED. 

" A triumph of priestly arrogance and prelatic impiety ! "/ 
We have quoted from Stanley's essay on "Baptism," 
as it was published in the Nineteenth Century for Octo- 
ber, 1879. 



-THE- 



Argument of Concession 



THIRD PART. 



The Argument of Concession 



IMMERSION THE ONLY APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 



We furnish proofs from eminent pedobaptist authors 
who have conceded that immersion was the only mode 
known and practiced by the apostles as connected with 
the Great Commission. A proposition proved beyond 
a peradventure, by its enemies, certainly should stand 
forever impregnable We shall proceed to give our 
pedobaptist authorities, whose testimony none dare call 
in question. 

Mo^HEIM — Church History, First Century. — "The sacrament of bap- 
tism was administered in this century, without the public assemblies, in 
places appointed and prepared for that purpose, and was performed 
bv an immersion of the whole body in the baptismal font." 

Of baptism in the second century he says: 

"The persons that were to be baptized, after they had repeated the 
creed, confessed and renounced their sins, and particularly the devil 
and his pompous allurements, were immersed under water, and received 
into Christ's kingdom ' Machine's Translation, Vol. I., pp. 12G, 206). 

( Mosheim was an eminent Lutheran scholar, and was 
Chancellor and Professor of Theology in the University 
of Gottingen. j 

NeANDER — Church History. — "In respect to the form of baptism, it 
was, in conformity with the original institution, and the original import of 
the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the 
Holy Spirit — of being entirely penetrated by the same" (Vol. L, p. 310). 

(470 



472 IMMERSION THE ONLY APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 

In his " History of the Planting and Training of the 
Church," the same writer says: 

" Baptism was originally administered by immersion, and many of 
the comparisons of Paul allude to this form of administration." 

In an appendix to "Judd's Review of Stuart" is a 
note from Neander, in which he says: 

As to your question on the original rite of baptism, there can be no 
doubt whatever that, in the primitive times, the ceremony was per- 
formed by immersion, to signify a complete immersion into the new prin- 
ciple of life divine, which was to be imparted by the Messiah. When 
Paul says that through baptism we are buried with Christ and rise 
again with him, he unquestionably alludes to the symbol of dipping 
into, and rising again out of, the water. The practice of immersion in 
the first century was, beyond all doihbt, prevalent in the, ivhole Church. 

As a scholar, Neander stands confessedly in the first 
rank of church historians. The simple and single fact 
that he was a Professor of Theology in the University 
of Berlin thirty-eight years attests his learning and his 
competency as a witness to the work. 

AuGrUSTI — Archaeology. — "Immersion in water was general until the 
thirteenth century among the Latins. It was then displaced by sprink- 
ling, but retained by the Greeks." 

Augusti was an eminent Lutheran scholar in the 
University of Bonn ; a man of acknowledged scholar- 
ship, and, of course, a competent witness to the truth. 

Gieseler — Church History. — "For the sake of sick the rite of sprink 
ling was introduced." 

This renowned pedobaptist was also a professor in the 

University of Bonn, and a member of the Lutheran 

Church. 

Kurtz — Church History " Baptism was administered by complete 
immersion.^ 

Dr. Kurtz, a professor in the University of Dorpat, 

is, among pedobaptists, a trustworthy witness. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 4/3 

Van Collen — History of Doctrines.—" Immersion in water was gen- 
eral until the thirteenth century." 

Winer -Christian Antiquities — "Affusion was at first applied only to 
the sick, but was gradually introduced for others after the seventh cen- 
tury, and in the thirtesnth became the prevailing practice in the West. 

Dr. Brenner — History of Baptism. — "Thirteen hundred years was 
baptism generally . . . performed by the immersion of the person 
tender water; an I only in extraordinary cases was sprinkling, or affu- 
sion, permitted. Tnese latter methods of baptism were called in 
question and ev a pr hibited." 

Bower — History of Popes. — 'Baptism by immersion was, undoubt- 
edly, the i practice, and was never dispensed with by the 
Church except in cases of sickness." 

Bishop Bossuet — Stennet and Russen. — "We are able to make it 
appear, by the acts < E councils and by ancient rituals, that for thirteen 
hundred years baptism was administered (by immersion) throughout the 
whole Church, as far as possible." 

Stackhouse — History of the Bible. — "We nowhere read in the 
Scripture of any one being baptized but by immersion, and several 
authors have proved, from the acts of councils and ancient rituals, 
that this manner of immersion continued, as much as possible, to be 
used for thirteen hundred years after Christ." 

Dr. Philip Schaff — History Apostolic Church. — " Immersion, and 
not sprinkling, was unquestionably the original normal form. This is 
shown by tiie very meaning of the Greek words, baptizo, baptisma, and 
the analogy of the baptism of John, which was performed in the 
Jordan (era), Matt. iii. 0; compare with 1G; also eis to Jordanen (into 
the Jordan), Matt. i. 9. Furthermore, by the Xew Testament com- 
parisons of baptism with the passage through the Red Sea (1 Cor. x. 
2); with the flood (1 Pet. iii. 21); with a bath (Eph. v. 26; Titus iii. 
o); with a burial and resurrection (Rom. vi. 4; Col. ii. 12); and finally, 
by the general usage of ecclesiastical antiquity, which was always immer- 
sioTb, as it is to tins day in the Oriental and also in the Grseco-Russian 
Churches, pouring and sprinkling being. substituted only in cases of 
urgc-ut necessity, such as sickness and approaching death." 

Dr. Schaff is the acknowledged leader of the Reformed 
Church in America; his profound scholarship, both as a 
historian and as a philologist, is recognized, both in 
Europe and America, by the most eminent scholars in 



474 IMMERSION THE ONLY APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 

all orthodox churches. His " History of the Christian 
Church" is one of the best ever written, and as a scrip- 
tural exegete he has few peers. Surely, such testimony 
as he candidly presents should be accepted as final on 
the subject of immersion. 

Venema — Ecclesiastical History. — " It is without controversy that 
baj)tisrn, in the primitive Church, was administered by immersion into 
water, and not by sprinkling, seeing that John is said to have baptized 
in Jordan, and where there was much water, as Christ also did. by his 
disciples, in the neighborhood of these places. Philip, going down 
into the water, baptized the eunuch." 

Hagenbach - History Christian Church. — "'That baptism, in the 
beginning, was administered in the open air, in rivers and pools, or 
that it was by immersion, we know from the narratives in the New 
Testament. In later times there were prepared great baptismal fonts, 
or chapels. The person to be baptized descended several steps into 
reservoir of water, and then the whole body was immersed. under the 
water. ' ' 

Waddington — Church History. — "The sacraments of the primitive 
Church were two — that of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The cere- 
mony of immersion, the oldest form of baptism, was performed in the 
name of the three persons of the Trinity." 

CoirEMAN — Ancient History. — " In the primitive Church immersion 
was undeniably the common mode of baptism. This fact is so well 
established that it were needless to adduce authorities in proif of it. It is a 
great mistake to suppose that baptism by immersion was discontinued 
when infant baptism became generally prevalent. The practice of 
immersion continued even unto the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Indeed, 
it lias never been formally abandoned, but is still the mode of admin- 
istering infant baptism in the Greek Church, and in several other 
churches." 

Dk. "Wax,!, — History Infant Baptism. "This (immersion) is so plain 
and clear by an infinite number of passages, that one can not but pity the 
weak endeavors of such pedobaptists as would maintain the negative of it. . . . 
The custom of the Christians in the near succeeding limes (to the 
apostles), being more largely and particularly delivered in books, is 
known to have been generally, or ordinarily, a total immersion." 

Dr. Wall was for fifty-two years (1676-1728) vicar of 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 475 

Shoreham, Kent; was a member of the Church of Eng- 
land, and, among other works, he published " Infant 
Baptism Asserted and Vindicated," and" History of 
Infant Baptism, in Two Parts." Hence his concessions 
have great weight. 

Bishop Smith -History of Baptism.—" We have only to go back six 
or eight hundred years and immersion was the only mode, except in the 
case of the few baptized on their beds at the real or supposed approach 
of death. . . . Immersion was not only universal six or eight hun- 
dred years ago, but it was primitive and apostolic. . . . The bowl 
and sprinkling are strictly Genevan in their origin ; that is, they were 
introduced by Calvin at Geneva." 

Dr. George Gregory — History of Church. — " The initiatory rite of 
baptism (in the first century) was publicly performed by immersing 
the whole body." 

Bingham — Origines — "As this (dipping) was the original apostolic 
practice, so it continued the wniverml practice of the Church for many 
years." 

Bingham was one of the most laborious and highly 
educated men that the Church of England ever pro- 
duced : 

Dr. Cave — Primitive Christianity. — "The party to be baptized was 
wholly immersed, or put under water, whereby they did more nolably 
and significantly express the three great ends and effects of baptism." 

Magdeburg Cent. — "They (the apostles) baptized only adults. 
As to the baptism of infants, we have no example. As to the man- 
ner of baptizing, it Mas by dipping or plunging into the water." 

Dr. George Christian Knapp — Christian Theology. — "To baptisma, 
from baptizim, which properly signifies to immerse (like the German 
taufen), to dip in, to wash (by immersion). Immersion is peculiarly 
agreeable to the institution of Christ and to the practice of the apos- 
tolical church; and so even John baptized, and immersion remained 
common a long time after, except that, in the third century, or per- 
haps earlier, the baptism of the sick (baptisma clinicorum) was performed 
by sprinkling, or affusion. Still, some would not acknowledge this to 
be true baptism, and controversy arose concerning it — so unheard-of 
was it at that time to baptize by simple affusion. Cyprian first 



476 IMMERSION THE ONLY APOSTOLIC BAPTISM. 

defended baptism by sprinkling, when necessity called for it, but cau- 
tiously and with much limitation. By degrees, however, this mode of 
baptism became more customary — probably because it was more con- 
venient. Especially was this the case after the seventh century and in 
the Western Church, but it did not become universal until the com- 
mencement of the fourteenth century." 

Dr. Knapp was one of the most popular of modern 
Lutheran theologians. His "Lectures on Theology," 
from which the above passage is quoted, was translated 
by Dr. Leonard Woods, Jr., President of Bowdoin 
College, and seventeen years ago the work had reached 
the twentieth edition. 



PEDOBAPTIST AUTHORITIES CONTINUED. 



As this is an age of searching investigation and thor- 
ough criticism, and as honest and intelligent men are 
not inclined to believe without testimony, we proceed 
with our inductive argument, which is made conclusive 
by the testimonials of the most eminent pedobaptist 
authorities. 

Dr. Whitby — " Immersion was religiously observed by all Chris- 
tians for thirteen centuries, and was approved by the Church of England. 
And since the change of it into sprinkling was made without any allow- 
ance from the Author of the institution, or any license from any Council of 
the Church (of England), being that which the Romanist still urgetli 
to justify liis refusal of the cup to the laity, it were to be wished that 
this custom (immersion) might be again of general use. 

Dr. Whitby belonged to the Church of England. He 
was a distinguished preacher and author, and died in 
1726. 

Dr. Geikie — " With the call to repent, John united a significant rite 
for all who were willing to own their sins and promise amendment of 
life. It was the new and striking requirement of baptism which John 
had been sent by divine appointment to introduce." 

As the testimony of Dr. Geikie, being a profound 
scholar and historian, and still living, is of more import- 
ance than all the testimony of little sectarian preachers 
combined, we shall quote him at some length. He 
says, in his " Life of Christ " : 

The Mosaic ritual had, indeed, required Washings and purifications, 
but they were mostly personal acts for cleansing from ceremonial defile- 
ments, and were repeated as often as uncleanness demanded. But 

(477) 



47$ PEDOBAPTIST AUTHORITIES CONTINUED. 

baptism was performed only once, and those who sought it had to 
receive it from the hands of John. The old rites and requirements of 
the Pharisees would not content him. A new symbol was needed, 
striking enough to express the vastness of the change he demanded, 
and to form its fitting beginning, and yet simple enough to be easily 
applied to the whole people ; for all, alike, needed to break with the 
past and to enter upon the life of spiritual effort he proclaimed. . . . 
Washing had been in all ages used as a religious symbol and significant 
rite. Naaman's leprosy had been cleansed away in the waters of the 
Jordan. The priests in the temple practiced constant ablutions, and 
others were required daily from the people at large, to remove cere- 
monial impurity. David had prayed, " Wash me from mine iniquity." 
Isaiah had cried, "Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of 
your doings." Ezekiel had told his countrymen to " Wash their 
hearts from wickedness." . . . Ablution in the East is indeed, of 
itself, almost a religious duty. The dust and heat weigh upon the 
spirits and heart like a load ; its removal is refreshment and happiness. 
It was, hence, nearly impossible to see a convert go down into a 
stream, travel-worn and soiled with dust, and, after disappearing for a 
moment, emerge pure and fresh, without feeling that the symbol 
suited and interpreted a strong craving of the human heart. It was 
no formal rite with John. . . . 

On baptism itself he set no mysterious sacramental value. 
Xo one could receive it until he had proved his sincerity by an hum- 
ble public confession of his sins. Baptism, then, became a moral 
vow, to show, by a better life, that the change of heart was genuine. 

Bathing in the Jordan had been a sacred symbol, at least since the 
days of Xaaman, but immersion by one like John, with the strict and 
humbling confession of sin, sacred vows of amendment, and hope of 
forgiveness, if they proved lasting, and all this in preparation for the 
Messiah, was something wholly new in Israel. It marked, in a most 
striking way, the wonderful moral revolution which had taken place in 
the hearts of the people. 

Wholly se! f -oblivious, tainted by no stain of human pride, self-con- 
sciousness or low ambition, John had felt it no usurpation to constitute 
himself the messenger predicted by Malachi, '• sent to prepare the way 
of the Lord." . . . The crowds saw in him the most unbending 
strength, united with the most complete self -sacrifice ; a type of grand 
fidelity to God and his truth, and of the lowliest self-denial. The sor- 
rows and hopes of Israel seemed to shine out of his eyes — bright with 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 479 

the inspiration of his soul, but sad with the greatness of his work — as 
he summoned the crowds to repentance, alarmed them by words of 
terror, or led them in groups to the Jordan and immersed each singly in 
its waters, after earnest and full confession of their sins. 

John resisted no longer, and, leading Jesus into the stream, the rite 
was performed. Can we question that such an act was a crisis in the 
life ot our Lord? His perfect manhood, like that of other men, in all 
tilings except sin, forbids our doubting it. Holy and pure before sink- 
ing under the waters, he yet must have risen from them with the light of a 
higher glory in his countenance. His past life was closed ; a new era 
had opened. Hitherto the humble villager, veiled from the world, he 
was henceforth the Messiah, openly working among men. It was the 
true moment of his entrance_on a new life. Past years had been buried 
in the waters of the Jordan. He entered them as Jesus the Son of 
man ; he rose from them the Christ, the Son of God. 

Dean Stanley — ' ' Baptism," in the Nineteenth Century 
for October, 1879: 

What, then, was baptism in the apostolic age ? It coincided with 
the greatest religious change which the world h?s yet witnessed. Mul- 
titudes of men and women were seized with one common impulse, and 
abandoned, by the irresistible conviction of a day, an hour, a moment, 
their former habits, friends, associates, to be enrolled in. a new society, 
under the banner of a new faith. That new society was intended to 
be a society of "brothers"; bound by ties closer than any earthly 
brotherhood— filled with life and energy such as fall to the lot of none 
but the most ardent enthusiasts, yet tempered by a moderation, a wis- 
dom and a holiness such as enthusiasts have rarely possessed. It was, 
moreover, a society swayed by the presence of men whose words even 
now cause the heart to burn, and by the recent recollections of One 
whom "not seeing, they loved with love unspeakable." Into this 
society they passed by an act as natural as it was expressive. The 
plunge into the bath of purification, long known among the Jewish 
nation as a symbol of a change of life, was still retained as the pledge 
of entrance into this new and universal communion — retained under 
the sanction of Him into whose name they were by that solemn rite 
' baptized." In that early age the scene of the transaction was either 
some deep wayside spring or we'll, as for the Ethiopian, or some rush- 
ing river, as the Jordan, or some vast reservoir, as at Jericho or Jeru- 
salem, whither, as in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, the whole 



480 PEDOBAPT1ST AUTHORITIES CONTINUED. 

population resorted for swimming or washing. The water in those 
Eastern regions, so doubly significant of all that was pure and refresh- 
ing, closed over the heads of the converts, and they rose into the light 
of heaven, new and altered beings. It was natural that on such an 
act were lavished all the figures which language could furnish to 
express the mighty change: " Regeneration," " Illumination," 
"Burial," ''Resurrection," "A new creation," ''Forgiveness of 
sins," "Salvation." Well might the apostle say, '-Baptism doth even 
now save us," even had he left this statement in its unrestricted 
strength to express what in that age no one could misunderstand. But 
no less well was he led to add, as if with a prescience of coming evil : 
•• Xot the putting away the tilth of the flesh, but the answer of a good 
conscience toward God," 

We quote again from the same essay: 

This leads us to the second characteristic of the act of baptism. 
"Baptism " was not only a bath, but a plunge — an entire submersion 
in the dee]) water, a leap as into the rolling sea or the rushing river, 
where for a moment the waves closed over the bather's head, and he 
emerges again as from a momentary grave ; or it was the shock of a 
shower-bath — the rush of water passed over the whole person from 
capacious vessels, so as to wrap the recipient as within the veil of a 
splashing cataract. This was the part of the ceremony on which the 
apostles laid so much stress. It seemed to them like a burial of the 
old former self and the rising up again of the new self. So St. Paul 
compared it to the Israelites passing through the deep waters of the 
flood. "We are buried,"' said St. Paul, "with Christ by baptism at 
his death ; that, like as Christ was raised, thus we also should walk in 
the newness of life." Baptism, as the entrance into the Christian 
society, was a complete change from the old superstitions or restrictions ^ 
of Judaism to the freedom and confidence of the gospel. It was a 
complete change from the idolatries and profligacies of the old heathen 
world to the light and purity of Christianity. It was a change effected 
only by the same effort and struggle as that with which a strong swim- 
mer or an adventurous diver throws himself into the stream and 
struggles with the waves, and comes up with increased energy out of 
the depths of the dark abyss. 

This, too, is a lesson taught by baptism which still lives, although 
the essence of the material form is gone. There is now no disappear- 
ance as in a watery grave. There is now no conscious and deliberate 
choice made by the eager convert at the cost of cruel partings from 



I 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 48 I 

friends, perhaps of a painful death. It is but the few drops sprinkled, 
a ceremony undertaken long before or long after the adoption of 
Christianity has occurred. But the thing signified by the ancient form 
still keeps before us that which Christians were intended to be. This 
is why it was connected both in name and substance with conversion. 
In the Early Church the careful distinction which later times have 
made between baptism, regeneration, conversion and repentance 
did not exist. They all meant the same thing. In the apostolic age 
they were, as we have seen, combined with baptism. There was no 
waiting till Easter or Pentecost for the great reservoir, when the cate- 
chumens met the bishop — the river, the wayside well, were taken the 
moment the convert was disposed to turn, as we say, the new leaf in 
his life. And even afterward, in the second century, regeneration 
(paliggenesia), which gradually was taken to be the equivalent of bap- 
tism, was, in the first instance, the equivalent of repentance and con- 
version. 

We have quoted at length from this representative 
man of the Church of England and of the pedobaptist 
world. He was an eminent historian of the Christian 
as well as of the Jewish religion, and was a man of pro- 
found learning. This being so, the honest reader and 
searcher after the truth naturally asks this question, 
"Why, then, did he concede immersion to be exclus- 
ively practiced in the apostolic age, and for the first 
three centuries of the Christian Era, while he at the 
same time rejected this apostolic practice, and substitu- 
ted sprinkling and pouring?" We shall allow Dean 
Stanley to answer this question in his own language, 
and to give his reasons for changing this divine institu- 
tion to a human institution. He says: 

The reason of the change is obvious. The practice of immersion, 
apostolic and primitive as it was, was peculiarly suitable to the Southern 
and Eastern countries for which it was designed, and peculiarly unsuit- 
able to the tastes, the convenience and the feelings of the countries of 
the North and West. Not by any decree of Council or Parliament, 
but by the general consent of Christian liberty, this great change was 
effected. Not beginning till the thirteenth century, it has gradually 

32 



482 PEDOBAPTIST AUTHORITIES CONTINUKD. 

driven the ancient Catholic usage out of the whole of Europe. There 
is no one who would now wish to go back to the old practice. 

The man who writes in this irreverent and disjointed 
style can not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God, or that God delegated to him absolute authority 
over all nations, or that men are saved by submitting to 
the positive commands of the Son of God. We quote 
a little further : 

It had no doubt the sanction of the apostles and of their Master. It 
had the sanction of the venerable churches of the early ages, and of 
the sacred countries of the East. Baptism by sprinkling was rejected 
by the whole ancient church (except in the rare cases of death-beds or 
extreme necessity) as no baptism at all. Almost the first exception 
was the heretic Novatian. It still has the sanction of the powerful 
religious community which numbers among its numbers such noble 
characters as John Bunyan, Robert Hall and Havelock. In a version 
of the Bible which the Baptist Church has compiled for its own use 
in America, where it excels in numbers all but the Methodists, it is 
thought necessary, and on philological grounds it is quite correct, to 
translate John the Baptist by John toe Immerser. It has been 
defended on sanitary grounds. Sir John Floyor dated the prevalence 
of consumption to the discontinuance of baptism by immersion. But 
speaking generally, the Christian civilized world has decided against 
it. It is a striking example of the triumph of common sense and con- 
venience over the bondage of form and custom. 

The fact is, such men as Dean Stanley practically 
deny the divinity and authority of Jesus Christ, by sub- 
stituting the'r "tastes," and " convenience and feelings , " 
for the positive injunctions of the Son of God. What 
he styles "Christian liberty," by his own showing 
originated in an apostate condition of the Church, in 
the Dark Ages, where no inspired men, as the apostles, 
were present to infallibly guide the people. Stanley, 
with his ilk of the Church of England, is the last person 
who should contemptuously speak of "the bondage of 
form and custom," in view of the stiff and starchy ritual- 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 483 

ism of that Church. When he says that ' ' the Christian 
civilized world has decided against it," he should prop- 
erly sny "that an apostate Church, semi-infidel and 
semi-rational, has decided against it." 



TESTIMONY OF THE ENCYCEOPEDIAS. 



"Out of thine own mouth J shall condemn thee." 

We now give the testimony of the encyclopedias: 
Encyclopedia Britannic a. —Artide, Baptism.— 1 ' Christian bap- 
tism is the sacrament by which a person is initiated into the Christian 
Church. The word is derived from the Greek, baptizo— the frequenta- 
tive form of bapto, to dip or wash. The usual way of performing the 
ceremony was by immersion. In the case of sick persons {clinici) the 
minister was allowed to baptize by pouring water upon the head, or by 
sprinkling. In ihe Early Church 'clinical' baptism, as it was called, 
was only perm it led in cases of necessity, but the practice of baptism 
by sprinkling gradually came in, in spite of the opposition of councils 
aid hostile decrees. The Council of Kavenna, 1311, was the first 
Council of the Church which legalized baptism by sprinkling, by leav- 
ing it to the choice of the officiating minister." 

Encyclopedia Americana. — Article, Baptism. — " Baptism (that is, 
dipping, immersing, from the Greek baptizo) was usual with the Jews 
even before Christ. In the time of the apostles the form of baptism 
was very simple. The person to be baptized was dippea in a river, 01 
vessel, with the words which Christ had ordered, and, to express mort 
fully his change of character, generally adopted a new name." 

Metropolitan Encyclopedia. — Article, Baptism. — "We readilj 
admit that the literal meaning of the word 'baptism' is immersion, anti 
that the desire of resorting again to the most ancient practice of the 
Church, of immersion of the body, which has been expressed by mam 
divines, is well worthy of being considered." 

Verily, we should think so. 

Penny Encyclopedia. — Article, Baptism. — " The manner in which 
it (baptism) was first performed, appears to have been by immersion.'' 

Chambers' Encyclopedia. — Article, Baptism.— ll It is, however, 
indisputable that, in the Primitive Church, the ordinary mode of bap 

(484) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 485 

tism was by immersion, in order to which baptisteries began to be 
erected in the third, perhaps in tbe second, century ; and the sexes 
were usually baptized apart. But baptism was administered to sick 
persons by sprinkling, although doubts as to the complete efficacy of 
this clinic (sick) baptism were evidently prevalent in the time of 
Cyprian, in the. middle of the third century. /Baptism by sprinkling 
gradually became more prevalent, but the dispute concerning the 
mod?; of baptism became one of the irreconcilable differences between 
the Eastern and the Western churches, the former generally adhering 
to the practice of immersion, while the latter adopted the mere pouring 
of water on the head, or sprinkling on the face; which praciice has 
generally prevailed since the thirteenth century, but not universally, for 
it was the ordinary practice in England, before the Reformation, to 
immerse infants, and the fonts in the churches were made large enough 
for this purpose. This continued to be the practice until the reign of 
Elizabeth, and the change which then took place is ascribed to the 
English divines, who had sought refuge in Geneva and other places on 
the Continent during the reign of Mary." 

Edinburgh Encyclopedia. — Article, Baptism. — "The first law to 
sanction aspersion as a mode of baptism was by Pope Stephen II. , A. 
D. 733. But it was not till the year 1311 that a Council, held at 
Ravenna, declared immersion or sprinkling to b3 indifferent. In this 
country, however (Scotland), sprinkling was never practiced in ordi- 
nary cases till after the Reformation ; and in England, even in the 
reign of Edward VI., immersion was commonly observed. Those 
Scottish exiles, who had renounced the authority of the Pope, implic- 
itly acknowledged the authority of Calvin, and, returning to their own 
country, with John Knox at their head, in 1-559, established sprinkling 
in Scotland. 

From Scotland it made its way into England in the reign of Eliza- 
beth, but was not authorized by the Established Church. In the 
Assembly of Divines, held at Westminster in 1043, it was keenly 
debated whether immersion or sprinkling should bo adopted: twenty-five 
voted for sprinkling and twenty -four for immersion; and even that small 
majority was attained at the earnest request of Dr. Lightfoot, who 
had acquired great influence in the Assembly." 

Article, Baptisteries. — "Baptisteries were anciently very capacious, 
because, as Dr. Cote observes, the stated times of baptism returning 
but seldom, there were usually great multitudes to be baptized at the 
same time ; and then, the manner of baptizing by immersion, or dipping 
under the water, made it necessary to have a large font." 



486 TESTIMONY OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIAS.- . 

National Cyclopedia. — Article, Baptism. — " The manner in which 
the rite was performed appears to have been at first by complete immer- 
sion.'" 

Ree's Cyclopedia.— Article, Baptism. " In primitive times this 
ceremony was performed by immersion." 

Brand's Cyclopedia. — Article, Baptism. ~ u Baptism was originally 
administered by immersion, which act is thought by some necessarv to 
the sacrament." 

Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica. — Article, Baptism. — "Whatever 
weight, however, may be in these reasons, as a defense for the present 
practice of sprinkling, it is evident that during the first ages of the 
Church, and for many centuries afterward, the practice of immersion 
prevailed." 

Schaff-Herzoo Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. — 
Article, Baptism. — " In the Primitive Church, baptism was by immer- 
sion, except in the case of the sick {clinic baptism), who were baptized 
by pouring or sprinkling. These latter were often regarded as not 
properly baptized, either because they had not completed their cate- 
chumenate, or the symbolism of the rite was not fully observed, or 
because of the small amount of water necessarily used. [The twelfth 
canon of the Council of Neo-Caesarea (314-325) is: ' Whoever has 
received clinic baptism (through his own fault) can not become a priest, 
because he professed his faith under pressure (fear of death), and not 
from deliberate choice, unless lie greatly excel afterward in zeal and 
faith, or there is a deficiency of other eligible men.' — Hefele, Concil- 
iengeschicte, Vol. I., Sec. 17, first edition.] In A. D. 81G, the Council 
of Calcuith (Chelsea, in England) forbade the priests to pour water 
upon the infants' heads, but ordered to immerse them. — Hefele (Vol. 
IV., Sec. 414). ' The Council of Nemours (1284) limited sprinkling 
to cases of necessity, and Thomas Aquinas {Summa Theologica, ^ III., 
Qu. 66, Art. 7, De Baptismo) says: 'Although it maybe safer to bap- 
tize by immersion, yet pouring and sprinkling are also allowable.' 
The Council of Ravenna (1311) was the first to allow a choice between 
sprinkling and immersion (eleventh canon, Hefele, Vol. VI., Sec. 
669); but, at an earlier date (1287), the canons of the Council of the 
Liege Bishop John prescribe the way in which the sprinkling of chil- 
dren should be performed. The practice first came into use at the end of 
the thirteenth century, and was favored by the growing rarity of adult 
baptism. It is the present practice of the Roman Church; but, in the 
Greek Church, immersion is insisted on as essential. Luther sided 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 487 

with the immersionists, described the baptismal act as an immersion, 
and derived taufe (German for 'baptism') from tief (' deep'), because 
what one baptized, he sank tief in the water." 

Kitto's Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature. — Article, Bap- 
tism. — "Infant baptism was established neither by Christ nor the apos- 
tles. In all places where we find the necessity of baptism notified, 
either in a dogmatic or historical point of view, it is evident it was 
only meant for those who were capable of comprehending the word 
preached, and of being converted to Christ by an act of their own will. 
A pretty sure testimony of its non-existence in the apostolic age may 
be inferred from 1 Corinthians vii., since Paul would certainly have 
referred to the baptism of children for their holiness. (Compare 
Neander, ' History of Planting,' page 206.) But even in later times, 
several teachers of the Church, such as Tertullian (De Bapt., IS) and 
others, reject the custom; indeed, his church in general (that of Korth 
Africa) adhered longer than the others to the primitive regulations. 
Even when the baptism of children was already theoretically derived 
from the apostles, its practice was, nevertheless, for a long time, con- 
fined to a mature age." 



i 



TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS. 



We next come to speak of the symbolism of immer- 
sion, or of the allusions made in the Epistles to the 
primitive practice. And. fii 

tERT Barnes n Romans vi. 4: •••'!' ire buried,* etc. 

I: is aether prol the apostle, in this place, had allusion to 

the sion. This can not, indeed, be 

action, but I }. resume this is tin 
strife the gi it mass (diced readers." — A 

is. 

Dr. Barnes was a 1 eminent Presbyterian preacher and 

commentator. Baptizing- by immersion is equivalent to 

immersing bv immersion, which is a very awkward 

ion; for ring is the Greek wore 

Seized. 

I Ihalmers, D P.. LL.D., on Romans vi. 4 : -'The original 

_ ird it 
point of i ether the ordinance so named be per- 

1 in this way or bv spri: we doubt not that the \ 

lent style in the a is by an actual submerging of the 

e body under water. We advert to this for the purpose of U 
.ght on the analogy tha - I in the-«. Jesus 

leath, underwent this b on immersion under the 

surfa^ be a irree- 

tion. We by being baptized into his conceived t-» have 

made a similar translation. In tfa - ending under the water 

of baptism, to signed an old I in the n< I ding. 

to emerge into a second or a new life, along the course of which it is 
our part to maintain a strenuous avoidance i . which a^ good 

as expunged the being that 

cation of that holiness, which should begin with the iirst moment that 
we are ushered into our present being, and be perpetuated and make 

488 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 489 

progress toward the perfection of full and ripened immortality." — 

Lectures. 

Dr. Chalmers was a distinguished member of the 
Free Church of Scotland, which he, with four hundred 
other ministers, established in May, 1843, after they 
had abandoned the Established Church. He was 
appointed Principal and Professor of Theology in the 
Free Church College, which position he held until his 
death. 

Archbishop Tillotson — " Being buried with him in baptism, wherein 
also ye are r sen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath 
raised him from the dead.''' 

Buried wiihhim in baptism. For the full understanding of this expres- 
sion, we nms. have recours i to that parallel text (Rom. vi. 3-5), which 
will explain to us the meaning of this phrase: t; Know ye not that so 
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 
Therefore we are burvd with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ 
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should 
walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of 
his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Where we see 
that to be baptized into the death and resurrection of CHRIST IS TO BE bap- 
TTZED INTO THE SIMILITUDE AND LIKENESS OP THEM ; and the resem- 
blance is this : that as Christ, being dead, was buried in the grave, 
and, alter some stay in it, that is, for three days, lie was raised again 
out of it, by the glorious power of God, to a new and heavenly life, 
being not long after taken up into heaven to live at the ri^ht hand of 
Odd ; so Christians, when they were baptized, were immersed into the 
water, . . . their bodies being covered all over with it ; which is 
therefore called our being buried in baptism unto death; and after some 
short stay under water were raised or taken up again out of it, as if 
they had been recovered to a new life, by all which was spiritually 
signified our dying to sin, and being raised to a divine and heavenly 
life through the faith of the operation of Cod ; thai is, by that divine and 
supernatural power which raised up Christ from the dead. So that 
Christians from henceforth were to reckon th mselves dead unto sin, 
but alive unto God, through JESUS Christ, as the apostle speaks 
(Rom. vi. 11). — Sermon on Resurrection of Christ. 

If Archbishop Tillotson were now alive, and would 



49° TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS. 

talk in this manner, he would be nicknamed a " Camp- 
bellite " of the first water ; but since it is a fact that he 
was a communicant of the Church of England, there is 
no help in that quarter for our pedobaptist friends; and 
they must nolens volcns gulp down the unsavory dose. 

Whitefield on Romans vi. 3-4— "It is certain that in the words 
of our text there is an allusion to the manner of baptizing, which was 
by immersing." 

John Wesley on Romans vi. 4 "The allusion is to the ancient 
manner of baptizing by immersion."— New Testament Notes. 

Benson on Romans vi. 4, "Buried with Christ by baptism." — 
"Alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion." — Com- 
mentary. 

Bloomeield on Romans vi. 4-" Here is a plain allusion to the 
ancient custom of baptizing by immersion, and I agree with Koppe and 
Rosenmuller, that there is reason to regret that it should have been 
aJbandoned in most Christian churches, especially as it has so evident a 
reference to the mystic sense of baptism." 

Adam Clark, D D., on Romans vi. 4 — "It is probable that the 
apostle here alludes to the mode of administering baptism by immer- 
sion, the whole body being put under water.'*— Commentary. 

Conybeare and Howsox - " It is needless to add thai baptism was 
(unless in exceptional cases) administered by immersion, ihe convert 
being plunged beneath the surface of the water, to represent his death 
to the life of sin, and then raised from this momentary burial, to 
represent his resurrection to the life of righteousness. It must be a 
subject of regret that the general discontinuance of this original form 
of baptism (though, perhaps, necessary in our Northern climates) has 
rendered obscure to popular apprehension some very important pas- 
sages of Scripture."— Life and Epistles of St. Paul. 

Uericius Zwinglius on Romans vi. 3-4 ' ' When ye were immersed 
into the water of baptism, ye were engrafted into the death of Christ ; 
that is, the immersion of your body into water was a sign that ye ought 
to be engrafted into Christ and his death, that as Christ died and was 
buried, ye also may be dead to the flesh and the old man — that is, to 
yourselves." 

Phtlip Limborch— On Baptism — " Baptism, then, consists in ablu- 
tion, or rather, in the immersion of the whole body into water. For 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 49 1 

formerly those who were to be baptized were accustomed to be 
immersed with the whole body in water." 

Prof. J. A. Turretin on Romans vi. 3-4 — "And, indeed, baptism 
was performed in that age (the apostolic age), and in those countries, 
by the immersion of the whole body into water." 

Dr. James Macknight on Romans vi. 4 — " Christ's baptism was 
not the baptism of repentance, for he never committed any sin. But 
he submitted to be unprized ; that is, to be buried under the water by 
John and then raised out again, as an emblem of his future death and 
resurrection. In like manner the baptism of believers is emblematical 
of their own death, burial and resurrection (see Col. ii. 12). The 
burying of Christ and of believers, first in the water of baptism, and 
afterward in the earth, is fitly enough compared to the planting of 
seeds in the earth, because the effect in both cases is a reviviscence to 
a state of greater perfection." — Macknight on the Epistles. 

William Van Est on Romans vi o "For immersion represents to 
us Christ's burial and so also his death. For the tomb is a symbol of 
death since none but the dead are buried Moreover, the emersion 
which follows the immersion ha? a resemblance to a resurrection. We 
are, therefore, in baptism conformed not only to the death of Christ, 
as he has just said, but also to his burial and resurrection." 

Canon Farrar, D.D , F.R.S.— Life of St. Paul— "The life of the 
Christian being hid with Christ in God, his death with Christ is a 
death to sin, his resurrection with Christ is a resurrection to life. The 
dipping under the waters of baptism is his union with Christ's death ; his 
rising out of the waters of baptism is a resurrection with Christ and the 
birth to a new life" (page 480) 

Prof. F. Godet, D.D., on Romans vi. 3-4 — ' Some take the word 
baptize in its- literal sense of bathing, plunging and understand, ' As 
many of you as were plunged into Christ.' . . . One is not plunged 
into a name, but into water, in relation to (eis) a name ; that is to say, to 
the new revelation of God expressed in a name.' Modern commenta- 
tors are not at one on the question whether the apostle means to allude 
to the external form of the baptismal rite in the Primitive Church. 
It seems to us very probable that it is so, whether primitive baptism 
be regarded as a complete immersion, during which the baptized disap- 
peared for a moment under water (which best corresponds to the 
figure of burial), oi whether the baptized went down into the water up 
to his loins, and the baptizei poured the water with which he had filled 
the hollow of his hands over his head, so as to represent an immersion. 



492 TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS. 

. The relation between the two facts of burial and baptism, 
indicated by the apostle, is this : Burial is the act which consummates 
the breaking of the last tie between man and his earthly life. This 
was likewise the meaning of our Lord's entombment.'' 

Professor Godet tries hard to make an exception, by 
intimating that it was a custom with some, somewhere 
this side of the apostolic age, to take the candidate down 
into the water up to his loins and then pour water upon 
his head. As he does not positively assert that this 
was practiced, we must conclude that he simply indulged 
in a fancy. He also, in the same connection, quoting 
Mark vii. 4, says that "we can not insist on the sense 
of plunging couches or divans;" which is a fact, for in 
the American Revised Version neither conch, nor divan, 
nor tabic is found. So away goes that Gibraltar of the 
sprinkling fraternity. The fact is, it is utterly impossi- 
ble to find a case in all Bible history where the sprink- 
ling of pure, unmixed water stood connected with the 
salvation of one living soul ! 



TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS CON- 
TINUED. 



We proceed with our Argument of Concession, which 
proves stronger and stronger as we continue our cita- 
tions. 

H. A. W. Meyer, Th. D., on " Baptism of Jailer.'' — " This (that 
he led them to a neighboring water, perhaps in the court of the house, 
in which his baptism and that of his household was immediately com- 
pleted) is conhrmed by the fact that baptism took place by complete 
immersion, in opposition to Baumgarten, page 515, who, transferring 
the performance of baptism to the house, finds here an ' approxima- 
tion to the later custom of simplifying the ceremony,' according to 
which complete immersion did not take place. Immersion was, in 
fact, quite an essential part of the symbolism of baptism" (Rom. vi.). — 
Commentary on Acts, Note. 

Dr. Gloag says of Dr. Meyer that he is "the greatest 
modern exegete"; and Dr. Ormiston says: "No name 
is entitled to take precedence of that of Meyer as a 
critical exegete, and it would be difficult to find one 
that equals him in the happy combination of superior 
learning with keen penetration, analytical power and 
clear, terse, vigorous expression. ... So impartial 
and candid is he, that he never allows his own peculiar 
views to color or distort his interpretation of the lan- 
guage of Scripture." The testimony of such a pro- 
found scholar will ten times outweigh the objections of 
ten thousand second and third rate pedobaptist preach- 
ers and editors. 

Dr. Philip Schaff, on Rom. vi. 4. — "All commentators of note 
(except Stuart and Hodge) expressly admit, cr take it for granted that, 

(493) 



494 TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS CONTINUED. 

in this verse, . . . the ancient prevailing mode of baptism, by 
immersion and emersion, is implied as giving additional force to the 
idea of the going down of the old and the rising up of the new man. 
Bloomlield ; 'There is a plain allusion to the ancient mode of baptism 
by immersion; on which, see Suieei's Tkes. and Bingham s Antiquities.'' 
Barnes ' It is altogether probable that the apostle has allusion to the 
custom of baptizing by immersion.' Conybeare and Howson: 'This 
passage can not be understood, unless it be borne in mind that the 
primitive baptism was by immersion.' Webster and Wilkinson: 
' Doubtless there is an allusion to immersion, as the usual mode of 
baptism, introduced to show that baptism symbolized our spiritual 
resurrection.' Compare also Bengel, Riickert, Tholuck, Meyer. The 
objection of Philippi (who, however, himself regards this allusion 
probable in verse 4), that, in this case, the apostles would have 
expressly mentioned the symbolic act, has t o force in view of the 
daily practice of baptism." —Commentary of Lange, Note. 

Here now we have the irrefutable testimony of such 
witnesses and acknowledged scholars as Lange, SchafT, 
Bloomfield, Suicer, Bingham, Barnes, Conybeare, How- 
son. Webster, Wilkinson, Bengel, Riickert, Tholuck, 
Meyer, Philippi, and indeed, all commentators of note — 
except two —that in Rom. vi. 4 the apostle alludes to 
baptism by immersion, calling it a burial with Christ, 
thereby ' ' giving additional force to the idea of the 
going down of the old and the rising up of the new man." 

Justin Martyr, born A. D. 140: " We represent our Lord's suffer- 
ing by baptism in a pool." — Adhin?, page 127. 

Clemext of Alexandria, A. D. 200: "You were led to a bath as 
Christ was conveyed to the sepulchre, and were thrice immersed, to 
signify Christ's three days' burial." — Adkins, page 127. 

Such was the stress laid upon immersion in the latter 
part of the second century, that both Tertullian and 
Clement, on the supposition that the ordinance pos- 
sessed some inherent mystic power, introduced trine 
immersion, and which is the first time we hear of it. 
Athaxasius, Bishop of Alexandria, A. D. 328: "To immerse a 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 495 

child three limes in a pool or bath, and to etnerse him : this shows the 
death and resurrection of Christ on the third day. '— Stuart, page 148; 
Conant, Ex. 188. 

Gregory Xyassen, A. D. 328- "Coming into water, the kindred 
element of earth, we hide ourselves in it, as the Savior did in the 
earth." — Stwirt, page 147. "Let us, therefore, be buried with Christ 
in baptism, that we may also rise with him ; let us go down with him, 
that we may also be exalted with him." — Conant, Ex. 188. 

Ambrose. A. D. 340: ' You were asked, 'Dost thou believe in God 
Almighty ?' Thou saidst, 'I believe,' and thus thou wast immersed 
(mersisti); that is, thou wast buried." — Stuart, page 147. 

Chrysostom, A. D. 347: "To be baptized and to submerge, then to 
emerge, as a symbol of descent to the grave and ascent from it. And 
therefore Paul calls baptism a burial when ho says : 'We are therefore 
buried with him by baptism into death.'" — Westlake, ch. 3: Stuart, 
page 147. 

Apostolical Coxstitltions, written in the fourth eentury: 
" Immersion denotes dying with him (Christ); emersion a resurrection 
with Christ." — Stuart, page 148. 

Cyril. Bishop of Jerusalem, A. D. 350: "Thou going down into 
the water, and in a manner buried in the waters, as he in the rock, art 
raised again, walking in newness of life." — Conant, Ex. 176. " Ye 
professed the saving profession and sunk down thrice into the water, 
and again came up, and thereby a symbol shadowing forth the burial 
of Christ." — Conant, p. 178. 

Basil the Great, Bishop of Csesarea, in Cappadocia, A. D. 370: 
"By three immersions we represent the death of Christ— the bodies 
of those that are baptized are buried in water." — Conant, Ex. 181. 

Fourth Council of Toledo, Can. 5: "The immersion in water, 
as it were, the descent into the grave ; and the emersion from the water, 
the resurrection." — Adkins, page 128. 

Photius: "The three immersions and emersions of baptism signify 
death and resurrection." — Stuart, page 148. 

Gelasius: "The three immersions and emersions of baptism signify 
death and the resurrection." — Adkins, page 129. 

Gregory: " The three immersions and emersions signify death and 
the resurrection," ut supra 

Pelagius : "The three immersions and emersions signify death and 
the resurrection," ut supra. 



4g6 TESTIMONY OF THE COMMENTATORS CONTINUED. 

All these so-called " Fathers of the Church " unitedly 
represent immersion as a burial with Christ, and the 
reason they nearly all speak of trine immersion, is 
explained by the fact that trine immersion was intro- 
duced with other innovations in the latter part of the 
second century, at least one hundred years after the 
death of the apostles, and the practice was observed 
during the third and fourth centuries, especially in the 
churches of Africa, whose bishops were noted for mys- 
ticism and theological speculation. Augustine, of the 
fourth century, says, "that thrice repeated submersion 
expresses a resemblance of the Lord's burial," at supra. 

Archbishop Ckanmer : "The dipping into the water doth betoken 
that the old Adam, with all his sin and evil lusts, ought to be drowned 
and killed by daily contrition and repentance." — Westlake, ch. 3. 

Scudder : 'Baptism doth lively represent the death, burial, and 
resurrection of Christ, together with your crucifying the affections and 
lusts, being dead and buried with him unto sin, and rising with him 
to newness of life and to hope of glory." — Westlake, ch. 3. 

John B. Scudder was an eminent Presbyterian divine, 
who was educated in Princeton College, and who died 
in 1876. 

NiCHOLSOX, Bishop of Gloucester, Exposition of Church Catechism: 
"The ancient manner of baptizing and putting the person baptized 
under water and then taking him out again, did well set forth these 
two acts : the first his dying, the second his rising again. In our bap- 
tism, by a kind of analogy or resemblance, while our bodies are under 
the water we may be said to be buried with him," ut supra. 

Dr. MANTON, Chaplain to the King of England: "The putting the 
baptized person into the water, denoteth and proclaimeth the burial of 
Christ, and we, by submitting to it, are buried with him, or profess to 
be dead to sin; for none but the dead are buried; so that it signitieth 
Christ's death for sin and our death unto sin," ut supra. 



SUPPLEMENTARY 



33 



SUPPLEMENTARY 



INFANT BAPTISM. * 



BY D. B. TURKEY, A. M. 

The commission of Christ, on which the administration of water bap- 
tism is based, is found in the Gospel of Matthew — the only gospel 
which contains the baptismal formula. Does that commission, cor- 
rectly construed, require the baptism of infants? An affirmative 
answer is demanded as soon as a true translation of the commission is 
secured. The rendering .of the common English version is confessedly 
defective. Correctness of translation requires that the verb "teach" 
be eliminated in favor of the true rendering, "disciple." Jesus said : 
"Go and disciple all the nations (neuter plural), baptizing them 
(masculine plural) in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit ; teaching them (masculine plural) to observe every- 
thing which I have commanded you." That is the commission, and I 
have noted the peculiar gender of some of the words, according to the 
original, which is, of course, the authority in the case. The noun 
"nations" is the antecedent of the pronoun "them," which agrees 
with it in number and person and case, yet differs from it in gentler, 
in order to denote distributive relations, which, under Greek idiom, 
could be best implied in that way. The command, " Disciple all the 
nations, baptizing them," teaches us that all the nations distributively 
taken are to be discipled by baptism ; and so the scholar understands 
that Jesus commanded his followers to disciple all the nations by bap- 
tizing the individuals of whom all the nations consist. A failure to do 
this is a failure to carry out the commission. 

The quibble is raised that such a construction of the commission 
would require the baptism of unregenerated pagans and unrepentant 
infidels, as well as the baptism of infants. But I can not admit this. 
Do all the nations consist of infidels, pagans and impenitent adulls ? 
Not by* considerable. Are adults included among the individuals of 



*Re joinder to Remarks in American Christian Review. 

(499) 



SOD INFANT BAPTISM. 

whom all the nations consist? There is more in tin's question than a 
thoughtless person might get out of it. Infidels are only a constituent 
element in, not a constitutive element of, the nations. If infidels were 
to all abandon their infidelity, every nation would be improved, and 
no nation would be blotted out, in consequence of having no infidels. 
On the contrary, infants are not only a constituent element in every 
nation, bul are likewise a constitutive element of all the nations. 
Without infants no nation could continue to exist. Every extinct 
tribe gives evidence of the fact to the obliteration of nations in conse- 
quence of having no infants. Infants are not merely a portion of all 
the nations, in the sense of being found in every nation ; but they are 
the formative organic element — they compose all the nations, and of 
infants all nations consist, in the sense that no nation would or could 
exist without them, and in the additional sense that all adults have 
been infants. Here is a. point, sure enough, which the Savior at least 
did not ignore. Infants, not adults, elementally and essentially, con- 
stitute all the nations ; and baptizing all infants would ritually " dis- 
ciple all the nations." In this fact I find reason to justify me in 
concluding that Jesus, in the commission, required the baptism of 
infants. The phrase, "all the nations," is in the accusative case in 
the commission. If any restriction of its reference can be found in 
the immediate connection, or from the nature of the case, I would be 
grateful to the person who is able and willing to logically show what 
restriction is included; for until I can show a restriction under which 
to shut out the infants, I have no option, and must retain them as 
scriptural subjects of baptism. If a law were adopted forbidding 
adults to be baptized, yet tolerating the baptism of infants, it would 
sti'tl be possible to '• disciple all nations, baptizing them " ; for the 
unbaplized adults would die off, and the baptized infants would grow 
up, until, in each and every nation, it would come to pass that all 
individuals would be discipled by baptism, as surely as it comes to 
pass that one generation of adults is succeeded by another in cons- 
queuca of infants attaining adultship. But if a law were adopted for- 
bidding infants to be baptized, yet encouraging the baptism of adults, 
it would be utterly out of the question to "disciple all nations, baptiz- 
ing"; for the greater portion of all nations would be denied baptism. 
Infants outnumber adults in every nation which is not literally on the 
road to extinction. And, in spite of the mortality of infants, by which 
fully half of all who are born die within the first year from birth, the 
ratio of increase is so great that the adult ranks are augmented as well 
as replenished by the growing up of those who survive. Hence, adult 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS, 50I 

baptism can not ritually "disciple all the nations." It would leave 
the greater portion of all nations undiscipled by baptism, even if 
administered to every adult without exception or limitation. Did not 
our Lord understand this fact far better than we can ? I think so. 
Jesus said : "Go and disciple all the nations, baptizing them." Had 
it been proper to disciple all nations, teaching them first and baptizing 
them afterward, the wisdom of the Redeemer would surely have so 
instructed us. But the commission places baptizing before teaching : 
"Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I 
have commanded you." In doing this, it makes the baptism of infants 
occupy a better basis than that of adults, so far as the order of the 
commission is concerned. Nor is this fact weakened by an appeal to 
the language: "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations;" where the 
word rendered "teach" properly means "disciple," and is from a 
different root altogether. The fact that the commission requires bap- 
tizing before teaching, and the fact that infants are baptized before 
they are taught, will surely show that Jesus worded the commission in 
a manner that can not displease the advocate of infant baptism. A 
fact may rest on legitimate inference as securely as upon the most 
explicit declaration. The order of the commission i:. putting the bap- 
tizing them in advance of the instructing them, implies a design on 
Christ's part to promote the baptism of infants. 

The impossibility of discipling all the nations without baptizing 
infants, and the certainty that all the nations would ritually be disci- 
pled by the universal prevalence of infant baptism, and the added fact 
that the very order of mention in the commissi- »n specifies " baptizing 
them" before "teaching them" may not be considerations of much 
weight with unreflective bigots; but I feel sure that these considera- 
tions will weigh with every real lover of God's word. If Christ has 
authorized the baptism of infants — and the commission itself affords 
fair evidence that he has — the path of duty seems to me to be suffi- 
ciently plain without extended discussion. As a father, I should sub- 
mit my child to the ordinance of disciplement by baptism. To refuse 
to do that, is to lift my puny arm in rebellion against my Master. He 
did not say- "Disciple the believer only, baptizing him," etc. He 
was too wise to put upon his human servants the task of weighing the 
faith of a fellow-creature; but, on the contrary, has required each 
person, as he grows in knowledge, to act according to the measure of 
his faith, on behalf of his own house, or offspring, as really as on his 
own behalf. He said: "Disciple all the nations, baptizing them." 



502 INFANT BAPTISM. 

He requires the disciplement of every creature, ritually at, or soon 
after, birth, and rationally as soon as the dawning reason makes teach- 
ing a possibility. Thus the commission, correctly construed, is the 
bulwark of infant baptism. 
Peru, 111. 



ANSWER AGAIN. 

Our friend Turney holds on to the Great Commission 
with the desperate grip of death, for he very well knows 
that if he loses the commission, he loses all. It is his 
dcmicr resort. It is the last peg on which to hang a 
hope. If this text vanishes into thin air, he will, like 
every other baby baptist, find himself building upon the 
baseless fabric of a vision. 

I. When he asserts that "the Gospel of Matthew is 
the only gospel that contains the baptismal formula," 
he asserts what is not true ; for, according to Mark, it 
reads, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel 
to every creature ; he that bclieveih and is baptized shall 
be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
Mr. Turney will not receive this formula, because it 
contains the words "preach" and "believe"; and why 
not receive it? Because he knows that he can not preach 
to infants, and also because he knows that infants can 
not believe the gospel. Now where is he? Would he, 
in order to carry a point, undertake to make Mark con- 
tradict Matthew ? Such is his desperation, in a lost 
cause, that he would actually attempt to make the Holy 
Spirit contradict his own words ! For was not Mark as 
infallibly guided by the Holy Spirit as was Matthew? 
But Mark does not contradict Matthew, as we shall see. 
2. He says the word "nations" is "neuter plural." 
Very well, then, as nations separately are in the " neuter 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 503 

gender," and are not personal, including male and 
female, he must, to be consistent with his own rule of 
grammar, baptize each nation as one individual and sepa- 
rately ! We would like to see him baptize a nation. 
The only way he could do it would be to make an infant 
the representative of a nation, and then baptize the 
enfant terrible! The idea of baptizing a neuter gender — a 
neuter thing — did you ever ! 

3. Says Mr. Turney, A.M.: "Jesus said, 'Go and 
disciple all the nations (neuter plural), baptizing them 
(masculine plural) in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit ; teaching them 
(masculine plural) to observe everything which I have 
commanded you.'' According to this novel interpre- 
tation (which " beats the Jews "), after he has baptized 
the "neuter" nations, which have neither masculine 
nor feminine gender, he would then baptize only the 
"masculine" part of the nations; thus (without lexical 
authority or any other kind of authority) changing the 
neuter into the masculine gender, while he at the same 
time excludes the female portion of the nations from the 
covenant of God's grace ! Whoever heard of a nation 
without females in it? First, nations are neuter gender 
before they are baptized, but after they are baptized they 
are masculine gender — minus the feminine gender! 
Mr. Turney, A.M., would do well to brush up his 
knowledge of Greek syntax, before making such a dis- 
play of grammatical wisdom. 

4. "Common English version is confessedly defec- 
tive. Correctness of translation requires that the verb 
'teach' be eliminated in favor of the true rendering, 
'disciple.'" So says Mr. Turney, A.M. We accept 
the elimination with joy and alacrity, because Alexan- 



504 INFANT BAPTISM. 

der Campbell contended all his lifetime for that render- 
ing of the passage, and so have all our best scholars and 
leading men. This rendering only plunges our friend 
into deeper difficulties. The Greek lexicons must 
determine the meaning of the Greek representative of 
"disciple." And here are the definitions of fiatfyrsuco, 
matherteuo, as given by Edward Robinson (one of the 
highest Greek authorities) in his work entitled, "Greek 
and English Lexicon of the New Testament." 1. 
Intrans. , To be the disciple of any one. 2. Trans., To 
train as a disciple, to teach, to instruct. The definitions 
of the noun fia&y)vq<;, matheetees, are these : a disciple, 
scholar, follower of a teacher ; and "after Christ's death 
the term disciple takes the broader sense of follower, 
believer." 

Grove, in his Greek and English Dictionary, defines 
the word as follows : "To teach, to instruct, make con- 
verts or disciples, to learn, to become a scholar." And 
Grove, mind you, was one of the rankest of pedobap- 
tists. In view of these definitions, it is plain to be seen 
that teachers teach, and that disciples learn. Mr. Tur- 
ney says "that all the nations distributively taken are 
to be discipled by baptism." This is pure and undefiled 
assumption, for the reason that baptism is not contained 
in the definition of niathcetcno. Dare he say that bap- 
tism is one of the meanings of this Greek word? By 
implication he actually says so, and that, too, in opposi- 
tion to every Greek lexicon in the world. If this is not 
a willful perversion of the truth, then what is it ? The 
idea itself of baptism is not found in the Greek word 
fjLa&YjTZ'Jto, and Mr. Turney knows it ; and if he don't 
know it, why does he parade the literary title A.M.? 
Titles must be cheap where he lives. If matheeteuo 



REFORMATORY' MOVEMENTS. 505 

means baptism, then baptism means to teach, because 
the definitions of a word are always equal to the word 
defined, and every tyro in Greek knows that baptism 
(baptizd) does not mean to teach or to instruct. 

5. Can an infant, that possesses neither reason nor 
instinct, be instructed, taught, be made a disciple of 
Christ by following Christ? Mr. Turney is rooting 
around among the roots of the old Jewish covenant of 
circumcision, and evidently trying to confound the 
fleshly covenant of the Jews with the spiritual covenant 
of the New Dispensation. We challenge him to pro- 
duce one scholar out of the entire literary world who 
says that matheeteuo means baptism. We know that he 
can not do it, and therefore his case is as hopeless as it 
is help'ess. He might just as well assume that matliee- 
tci',o means soothing syrup, or that it means polyglott, or 
that " pussy wants a corner." 

6. "Jesus commanded his followers to disciple all the 
nations (distributively) by baptizing the individuals of 
whom all the nations consist." Why, sir, if you dis- 
tribute "the nations," do they not ( "distributively ") 
become single, individual nations? If so, by your own 
process of reasoning, you must go to work, and by 
physical force baptize the individual nations. Your dis- 
tributive argument is exceedingly fallacious But you 
say you mean that individuals must be baptized, accord- 
ing to the command of Christ? If you are a follower 
of Christ, and Christ has commanded his followers to 
disciple all nations, why don't you obey this positive 
command? Why don't you begin your force work 
immediately, by hailing men and women on the streets, 
and baptizing them against their choice and will? by 
stopping boys and girls on their way to school, and bap 



506 INFANT BAPTISM. 

tizing them against all their recalcitrant actions? by 
pitching- pell-mell into your neighbor's house, and bap- 
tizing nations by baptizing helpless, guileless, sinless, 
willless, non intelligent, non-resistant babes? Why 
don't you go about your business, sir, and, with the aid 
of a church posse comitatus, baptize infidels, skeptics, 
murderers, whoremongers, harlots, pickpockets, gam- 
blers and all? For, are not these a part of "all 
nations"? And if you can baptize infants without their 
will or consent, and without knowledge, why can you 
not baptize all the characters we have named above, 
provided you can procure sufficient physical force to 
bring them down into the water? For, as between 
infants and infidels, it is only a question of degree, and 
not a difference in the nature of the work. All nations 
have not been baptized in the past; all nations are not 
baptized in the present. And why? Has the church 
neglected to baptize all nations? If you can baptize 
infants without their consent, why not baptize men and 
women without their consent? The main thing is to 
get them all baptized, and after baptism teach them. 
If you can baptize an infant without faith, you can also 
baptize "children of a larger growth" without faith or 
reformation. Is it possible that Mr. Turney, A.M., 
teaches baptismal regeneration? So it seems. In the 
language of Mr. Turney, "There is more in this ques- 
tion than a thoughtless person might get out of it. " 

7. "Infidels are only a constituent element in, not a 
constitutive clement of, the nations !" In the name of 
goodness, what does the man mean by this? Let us 
see. Infidels are only a constituent element in, not a 
constitutive element of the United States. " Constitu- 
ent " and " constitutive " are both adjectives — qualifying 






REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. $0? 

adjectives — and mean precisely the same thing. Web- 
ster will please come forward and testify, by giving the 
definitions of both words. 

Constituent, I. The person or thing which establishes, 
determines or constructs. 2. That which constitutes or 
composes, as a part or an essential part ; a component ; 
an element. 

Constitutive, i. Tending or assisting to constitute, 
form or compose ; elemental ; essential. 2. Having 
power to enact, establish or create ; instituting. 

The only difference between the two words is the fact 
that "constituent" is derived from the Latin, while 
"constitutive" is derived from the Italian and the Span- 
ish. The difference between the two terms is not 
enough to make Mr. Turney, A.M., "walk Spanish." 
He must have intended to throw dust in the eyes of his 
readers. Such tampering with words is worthy of Jesu- 
istical casuistry. It is a metaphysical jugglery. To 
paraphrase one of his sentences: " Infants are not only 
a constituent element in every nation, but are likewise a 
constituent element of all the nations!" This is not 
only tautology, but it is absolute nonsense. A man 
must be in a terrible predicament who will resort to such 
transparent artifices. A Scotch blacksmith, being asked 
the meaning of " metaphysics," explained it as* follows : 
" When the party that listens dinna ken what the party 
speaks means, and the party who speaks dinna ken what 
he means— that is metaphysics." 



BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 



One of our" preaching brethren in Dakota has sent us 
a tract, which is being freely circulated in that country, 
entitled "The Baptism of Infants a Christian Duty," 
by Rev. H. G. Bilbie, which, as to assumption, pre- 
sumption, special pleading, specious plausibility and 
begging of the question, excels anything of the kind 
we have seen since the day when the Disciples of Christ 
were more positive and aggressive than they are now. 
With all our varied and large accumulation of literature 
on all possible biblical subjects, including bocks and 
debates and tracts, it seems somewhat remarkable that 
we have not a tract extant on the subject of "Infant 
Baptism." 

I. The author of the tract before us, in his defense 
of the rite, first appeals to the fact that out of the num- 
ber of ninety-seven million Protestants, there are ninety- 
four million who "indorse the practice." He might 
have added that there are two hundred million Roman 
Catholics and seventy million Greek Catholics who 
"indorse the practice." If numerical strength has any 
argument in it, then it will be quite easy to prove that 
popery, auricular confession, the mass, the burning of 
wax candles, celibacy, purgatory and priestly absolution 
are of divine origin and authorized by the Word of God. 
Brahminism and Buddhism, which represent thousands 
of millions, could be proved to be of divine origin by the 
same method of argumentation. Rev. Bilbie must be 

(5° v ) 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 5°9 

bard pushed to resort to the argument of numbers. The 
devil could rival him in that sort of a logical process. 
2. His second argument is "an appeal to history" — 
to the fathers of the Church, who began to write theo- 
logical works toward the close of the second century 
and down to the fifth century; which theological writing 
and mystical speculation synchronize with the introduc- 
tion and prevalence of the innovations which inaugura- 
ted the great apostasy of the Dark Ages. And this 
"appeal" he makes in face of the fact that there is nbt 
one scholar in a thousand at the present day who pre- 
sumes to trace infant baptism back to the age of the 
apostles. Says Rev Bilbie : " In the sixteenth century 
Cassander writes ' that all France, Spain, Germany and 
Italy, and all Europe, has had never a person baptized 
now for three hundred, or almost five hundred, years 
otherwise than in infancy; ' and history is destitute of 
any well-established fact to oppose to even so sweeping 
a statement as this. From the eighth century back to 
the middle of the third there can be but one opinion as 
to the universal prevalence of the practice throughout 
all the branches of the Christian Church. If, then, 
baptism is an innovation [he means infant baptism, we 
presume], it must have occurred during the first three 
centuries of the Christian era. But what has history to 
say upon this important point?" 

Why, sir, "history" has this to say: That infant 
baptism was first talked about in the latter part of the 
second century; that it began to be advocated in the 
third century; that its introduction was vigorously 
opposed by some of the most talented men of the 
times (notably Tertullian); that it was practiced in the 
fourth and fifth centuries against continuous protesta-' 



510 BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 

tions [and if it was not an innovation, why was it so per- 
sistently opposed so near to the age of the apostles?]; 
that the practice was adopted and perpetuated by heret- 
ical teachers in the same years when metropolitan bish- 
ops began to assume an ecclesiastical authority that 
destroyed the individuality and independency of the 
congregations; and in those years when the Papacy, 
with all its flummeries and departures from the original 
faith, began to develop and shape itself for the Dark 
Ages. "History" informs us that, during the entire 
period of the Dark Ages, immersion was not practiced — 
was unheard of, except in very rare instances— but, on 
the contrary, that the sprinkling of infants was the gen- 
eral practice, and that the denser the darkness of -the 
age, the denser the superstition that attached to the rite 
of infant baptism. 

The Rev. Bilbie makes some curious, and we may say 
self-condemning" statements, as for instance : "St. Aus- 
t'n wrote a history of all denominations [McClinlock & 
Strong in their Encyclopedia say nothing about such a 
history] about A D. 420. [How a man could write a 
history of all denominations about A. D. 420, who 
was not born till the sixth century, wc utterly fail to 
see.] Among these he includes eighty-eight heresies, 
but omits infant baptism from the list." And why did *- 
he omit infant baptism from the list? For the good 
reason that he could not place on record that which had 
no existence in fact. Then Rev. Bilbie asks the ques- 
tion, "Is it reasonable to affirm that all trace of the 
introduction of the practice into the church had in less 
than four centuries so completely faded from history 
that he should classify it with the acknowledged Chris- 
tian rites by mistake or ignorance?" We ask, How 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 511 

could a thing fade from history that was not recorded in 
history? Whoever before heard that the omission to 
mention a thing proved the existence of the thing? He 
further says: ''The universality of the practice in the 
beginning of the fifth century is proved by a decree of 
a council held in Carthage in 418. Two hundred and 
fourteen bishops were in attendance, and they wrote : 
'Also we determine that whoever does deny that infants 
may be baptized when they come recently from their 
mother's womb, ... let him be anathema.'" 

Why was it a universal practice in the fifth century 
and not in the first century ? And why did it become 
necessary for this Carthage council to pass such a 
decree ? Did the apostles ever pass such a decree ? 
Did Christ or the apostles authorize these two hundred 
and fourteen bishops to pass this decree ? Is there any- 
thing in the New Testament like it? In the fifth century 
the church fathers, such as Rev. Bilbie cites, began to 
speculate about the existence of a purgatory. It was at 
the Council of Toledo (A. D. 400) that the bishop of 
Rome was for the first time spoken of simply by the 
title of " Pope."* In A. D. 417 the custom of hallow- 
ing paschal candles on Easter was commanded by Gosi- 
mus, and ordered to be practiced in every church. In 
431 the first law was passed granting asylum in churches 
to fugitives from justice. Mr. Elliott, in his Horce 
Apocalyptic ce, assigns this as the date when the bishop 
of Rome distinctly assumed the "keys" as a symbol 
of ecclesiastical power. The invocation of saints was 
introduced A. D. 470, by Peter Gnapheous, patriarch 
of Antioch, and ordered that the "Mother of God" 



*See Landon's Manual of Councils. London, 1846, p. 573. 



$12 BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 

should be used in every prayer and in every church. 
We have the authorities before us, if these statements 
are doubted. 

Now will Rev. Bilbie accept of these false dogmas 
and corruptions of primitive Christianity because they 
were introduced in the fifth century and recorded in the 
annals of the fifth century? The Romanists quote the 
Greek and early Roman fathers of the first four centuries 
in proof of monastic life — the celibacy of the clergy — the 
merit of perpetual virginity — the pontificate of Peter in 
Rome — and infant communion .* As the question of 
infant baptism must be established by the apostles of 
Jesus Christ, his accredited embassadors to the world, 
both Jew and Gentile, of what avail is the array of so 
many post-apostolic names — the names of uninspired 
men— such as Origen, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, 
Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian, et al.f If Polycarp 
and others, who almost touched the apostles, ever 
asserted that infant baptism was practiced in the age of 
the apostles, why does not Rev. Bilbie quote the lan- 
guage of these eminent men, and give us book, chapter 
and section, instead of affirming what he can not prove, 
or what he does not attempt to prove ? And if these 
distinguished fathers opposed infant baptism, standing 
so near the apostles, why did they object to infant bap- 
tism as a heresy or innovation ? How could these 
"heretical writers," as Bilbie calls them, interpose 
objections to infant baptism if the rite was "univer 
sally practiced?" Here is a palpable contradiction, 
and our sanguine advocate of a senseless rite must 
swallow the dose. The Very fact that, in that early age 



*Polydore Vergil, B. VI., v., p. 120. London, 1551. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 5 I 3 

of the Church, the innovation was opposed, is not only 
presumptive, not only probable, but positive evidence 
that adult immersion was the universal apostolic prac- 
tice. And yet, in the face of this fact, Bilbie has the 
presumption to assert that "the objection of a heretic 
amounts to conclusive proof of the existence of that 
to which objection is made ! " If infant baptism was 
''universally practiced," will our friend tell why these 
"heretical writers" objected to the heresy? There 
must be ground for every objection. What was the 
ground of their objection ? It was either the Word of 
God blazing before their eyes, or it was a pure myth or 
a vain imagination. Now, which was it? Before closing 
this article, let us hear what Dean Stanley, of the 
Church of England, and a typical representative of the 
whole pedobaptist world, has to say on the subject of 
infant baptism. After a thorough, searching investiga- 
tion of the subject, he says: 

Another change is not so complete, but is perhaps more important. 
In the apostolic age, and in the three centuries which followed, it is 
evident that, as a general rule, those who came to baptism came in full 
age, and of their own deliberate choice. We find a few cases of the 
baptism of children ; in the third century we find one case of the bap- 
tism of infants. Even amongst Christian households the instances of 
Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Ephrem of Edessa, Augustine, 
Ambrose, are decisive proofs that it was not only not obligatory, but 
not usual. They had Christian parents, and yet they were not bap- 
tized till they reached maturity. The liturgical service of baptism 
was framed entirely for full-grown converts, and is only by considera- 
ble adaptation applied to the case of infants. Gradually, however, 
the practice spread, and after the fifth century the whole Christian 
world, East and West, Catholic and Protestant, Episcopal and Presby- 
terian (with the single exception of the sect of the Baptists before 
mentioned), have baptized children in their infancy. Whereas, in the 
early ages, adult baptism was the rule, and infant baptism the excep- 
tion, in later times infant baptism is the rule, and adult baptism the 

34 



5 H BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 

exception. What is the justification of this almost universal depart- 
ure from the primitive usages? There may have been many reasons, 
some had, some good. One, no doubt, was the superstitious feeling 
already mentioned, which regarded baptism as a charm, indispensable 
to salvation, and which insisted on imparting it to every human being 
who could be touched with water, however unconscious. Hence the 
eagerness with which Roman Catholic missionaries, like St. Francis 
Xavier, have made it the chief glory of their mission to have baptized 
heathen populations wholesale, in utter disregard of the primitive or 
Protestant practice of previous preparation.* Hence the capture of 
children for baptism without the consent of their parents, as in the 
celebrated case of the Jewish boy, Mortara. Hence the curious 
decision of the Sorbonne quoted in Tristram Shandy. Hence in the 
early centuries, and still in the Eastern Churches, co-extensive with 
infant baptism, the practice of infant communion, both justified on 
the same grounds, and both based on the mechanical application of 
biblical texts to cases which by their very nature were not contemplated 
in toe apostolic age. 

Speaking of the "changes" which took place in the 
post-apostolic age, Dean Stanley says : "Such changes 
on such a momentous subject are the most encoura- 
ging lessons of ecclesiastical history. They show how 
variable and contradictory, and therefore how capable of 
improvement, has been the theology of the Catholic as 
well as of the Protestant churches, and how great, 
therefore, are the hopes of the future of both." — italics 
ours. Again he says: "It remains an instructive exam- 
ple of the facility and silence with which, in matters of 
form, even the greatest changes can be effected without 
any serious loss to Christian truth, and with great advan- 
tage to Christian solemnity and edification. The substi- 
tution of sprinkling for immersion must to many at the 
time, as to the Baptists now, have seemed the greatest 
and most dangerous innovation." And yet Dean Stanley 

*See a powerful description of this mode of baptism in Lord Elgin's 
'• Life and Letters," edited by Theodore Walr nd, p, 338. 



REFORMATORY MOVEMENTS. 5 I 5 

and Rev. Bilbie dare to change one of the positive ordi- 
nances of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Again says 
the lordly Dean : "The substitution of infant baptism for 
adult baptism, like the change fi'om immersion to sprinklings 
is thus a triumph of Christian charity " — italics ours. 



